The following is a research proposal for the Digital Ethnography Class of 2009, constructed from their own proposal drafts posted on their blogs. You can follow their blogs and other aspects of this research as it unfolds at our research hub.

Working Title
The Fight for Significance in the Age of the Microcelebrity:
Anonymity, Anonymous, Smart Mobs, Mad Mobs, Bot Mobs and the Great American Poets

Starting with what she calls "the roots of anonymity" emi* notes that "Despite the fact that the word didn't come into use until after the printing press was developed, anonymity has existed for hundreds of years. How it has existed and why people have embraced its concept, is something that has changed and evolved over time and it provides tremendous amounts of insight into how it has benefited some and been detrimental to others. If we are to understand the role of anonymity in our recent past and our future, it is crucial to look at the role anonymity has played in influencing people and their actions. Anonymity is a key player in deciphering whether or not people are influenced by ideas themselves or more so by the identities behind them."

Anne Ferry has referred to this separation of idea and identity as the "aesthetic ideal" of anonymity, contrasting this with anonymity as a cultural condition. As Kevin notes, "The technological advancement of the Industrial Revolution forever altered the way people relate to each other ... [creating] anonymous social relations. Reflecting the componentiality of industrial labor, the individual's social relations and identity simultaneously bifurcated. As Berger et al. note, "the individual now becomes capable of experiencing himself in a double way: as a unique individual rich in concrete qualities and as an anonymous functionary.""

In this context we find a "crisis of significance" - people struggling to find "the meaning of life" and feeling disconnected, alone, and insignficant. As Kevin notes, this leads to "increasing levels of both narcissism and apathy."

It was in this context that virtual communities emerged. As Trapper notes, "A community has traditionally been viewed as a group of people that interact and live relatively close in terms of geographical space. With the invention of the internet a new form of community has been created, a virtual community. The internet allows a community to form in a new medium, where geographical space and even time become irrelevant. As long as you have a computer and can connect to the internet, you can participate in a virtual community."

Turning to the effects of media on the self, Brin will provide "an overview of the principal characteristics of social saturation, emphasizing the variety of relationships that people engage in, the increased frequency of contact with others, the modification of conventional, long-lasting relationships into ones that last for short periods of time, & the greater intensity of relationships ... highlighting how social saturation contributes to this process of "populating the self." The saturated self may make itself homogenous and eventually anonymous."

But as Kevin notes, "the sense of uncertainty and personal unrest created by the anonymization of social relations and identity is only amplified by new media that exponentially increase our physical and informational connectedness. The hyper-individualization of the western world, and its perverse fixation on celebrity, is a likely response to this sense of anomie, always seeking to liberate individuals of their anonymity."

Gingerale489 proposes a study of how our "perverse fixation on celebrity" becomes manifest as "Facebook and other networking systems have provided all of us with an opportunity at microcelebrity. Our Facebook profiles allow us to share irrelevant personal information with the world. They allow us to brag about our accomplishments and show off our finest qualities. Other people notice, and we receive attention. We have found a way to create our own significance, or at least try. Is the significance that people had before not good enough? There must be a reason that our society is searching for more. What is the draw of Facebook? Is it proving that you fit in? Or trying to stand out? Facebook is changing the way we communicate, the way we think, the way we advertise. This networking device has united people and allowed us to have the most personal details of people’s lives at our fingertips in a few clicks of the mouse. However, Facebook could also be the downfall of relationships as we know them. The intimate, face-to-face conversations of the past have been reduced to writing on an acquaintance’s wall or tagging them in a note. Facebook may have brought us together, but is it also tearing us apart?"

Highlighting some of these contradictions, Teosholo notes that "Anonymity in the past has been used to preserve the purity of artistic perspective, to publish ‘unfavorable’ or inflammatory opinions, or to merely hide the identity of the writer. The internet has allowed anonymity to be accessed by anyone with an ISP. The facility of adopting anonymity has created entirely new communities and groups on the internet that are bound or freed by their very lack of ‘nonymity’." Teosholo sees this as an entry point into some big questions to explore in this project: "How does this change how people view morality? Do they still hold to their society's moral code, or do they abandon it? Do they embrace hypocrisy; do they try to make the world better?"


Femina Incognita envisions a case study to explore these questions, "Websites like 4chan.org and whyweprotest.net are two among many that are breeding grounds for anonymity of every stripe – and on top of that, there seems to be a rivalry between /b/ from 4Chan and Project Chanology (the “organization” behind whyweprotest.net); /b/tards seem ill-inclined to do things for the sheer goodness of it, calling members of Chanology “moralfags,” claiming that "moralfags" are like politicians, out to establish fame or powerful identity using the internet rather than just out of a desire to do good, while said members think the /b/tards are immature, ineffectual, and have outlived their usefulness."

SG will examine media portrayals of Anonymous. "The media has called trolls "hackers on steroids" and questioned if Anonymous' actions against Scientology are hate crimes; they are obviously interested in this issue and want the public to know. Are these fair presumptions? Or are they taking trolling for lulz out of proportion? Is it just a bunch of kids pulling pranks on their peers and elders like the kids of the past putting cherry bombs in mailboxes or ding-dong ditching? Either way, this issue should be and will be covered by the media."

CyborgDevaIsisDionysus takes us right into the heart of the contradictions in Anonymous calling them/it/us "the dancing chaotic God of YouTube. Their playfulness, fractured ideologies, and rhetorical strategies embrace the irony of postmodernism. Identity becomes formless within the medium of the internet. As content is separated from form what emerges is a space of chora. Plato described chora as the space between being and becoming. Contrary to critics fears of postmodernisms emptying of ethics I argue that a new ethics emerges in the chaos of chora. This is an ethics of the moment . Anonymous seen in this light is not the end of ethics but rather a return to a primordial ethics that speaks of truths excess; addressing the paradox of contemporary micro-celebrity culture. Anon's communiqués poetically undermine narcissism. Following Butler’s account of ethics I want to argue that ethical action requires a freedom from the subject. In the face of an unstable society the drive to self publish to give an account of oneself is the risk necessary to act. What if Anon was a woman? If Anon is read as a woman we can begin to uncover the logic that has created identity and woman. Western metaphysical tradition has placed women in a binary focused on the male gaze - beauty/monster - Feminine subjectivity has been dictated by the privileging of the male gaze as Berger argues. Anon reflects the shattered image of celebrity back upon itself. Anon is not the death of the subject but the return of repression – a ghost in the wires."

Femina Incognita wants to know, "Where do women fit into this? This is the aim of my project – discovering where anonymous women on the Internet best find their niche: in troll-infested chans like /b/, or in more socially conscious gatherings of like-minded people looking to make a stand for something they believe is right. The tendency in American society is to place women in the role of nurturers and keepers of morality, and men in the role of agressors, and so we expect more of the posturing present in /b/ to come from men (in fact, as stated on Encyclopedia Dramatica, it's a commonly stated idea that “there are no women on the Internets”), but if, as one site stated, /b/tards can be ironically pedophilic, then why can't there be female anons who are ironically misogynist? I have the suspicion that there are some that are, who post pornographic female imagery and shout “TITS OR GTFO” at “the newfags” they suspect are also female, but at the same time, I believe I'll find more female anons that are oriented towards Chanology. Either will be difficult, if not impossible to prove, but I think this research is going to raise as many interesting questions as it answers."

GK will follow "the development of mini-vocabularies that arise around events with which communities like Anonymous are concerned, and show how the references to these events – memes – mark contributors as part of the speech community. ... At first we may not associate the way we speak with these posts that can appear meaningless or even offensive. However, patterns emerge in the way we use language to connect and express ourselves, both in face-to-face speech, and anonymously online. Anonymous contributors are part of our culture, and they influence us. In many ways, they are us. These faceless forums give us a look into the mirror of what we could be if no one were watching. A dark reflection? Perhaps – but a reflection all the same. This project looks at a cultural microsystem where the collapse, manipulation and creation of our language – and consequently our culture - takes place before our eyes."

So LM wants to know, "Why do people troll? Do they behave the same way – say the same things – in “real” life?" LM hypothesizes that "the anonymity of social venues such as the Internet creates a totally different environment for social interaction. It is sometimes said that social inhibitions are lower under conditions of anonymity, which allows for fewer consequences and less accountability for one’s words and actions. But if one asks a troll why they troll, the troll might simply respond, “for the lulz.” Why is it so entertaining? Is the low likelihood of repercussions part of what makes trolling so enjoyable for some? What other factors are at play here?"

"In an online world where anonymity has produced hate, discourse, and things like Anonymous," Katie notes that, "it will be necessary to keep within our sight something that seems to have transcended the anomie, disconnection, and insignificance that threaten our increasingly technological existence. For example, personal connections run deep in the PostSecret community; many even claim that the site has saved their lives in making them feel less alone. Others say that it has restored their faith in humanity.What are people willing to disclose about themselves behind the cloak of anonymity? Could this be an element of the Crisis of Significance--in that people might need recognition for their posted secrets, as well as for the secret itself to be made known?

Teosholo* will build on these and other studies of anonymity, collective identity, and the internet phenomena of PostSecret, 4chan, and Anonymous (to give a few examples), to address how anonymity is allowing people to create new identities, identities that have a social disconnect from traditional views of morality or ‘moral rectitude’, and thus allows for, perhaps, a more honest form of reflection on the self and on society. Whether this will cause creative destruction of both, or simply devolution into chaos and moral abyss, is another avenue that will be explored."

SH will explore the implications of anonymity in public discourse by looking at a sample of cases involving wikileaks and other anonymous outlets throughout the web. In this regard, S* poetically reminds us that "Entire communities of people are forged in a crucible of information, where people acclimatize into news feeds, posting rules, languages and new on line norms. The Internet infrastructure is at times a generous giver of totality, freely distributing meaning, identity and information to all; bored teenagers in basements, presidents on wireless devices and armchair stockbrokers. The supposed darker side connects children with criminals and makes copyright felons out of dead women, 8-year old children, printers and 90-year grandmothers. The information superhighway speeds along, daring anyone to try to stop it. A torrent of necessitated expeditious systems that the system of law itself relies on cannot, and will not, be simply switched off or shut down." S* notes that "The only option to change the dizzying super-structure seems to change the very parameters on which the structure is built. How would this change be implemented? Has it already been implemented? Does the seemingly tortoise-like bureaucracy of “Big-brother” have a chance to make such a change that this little brother won’t be watching him?

As TheCSection notes, an entire field of "crypto-anarchy" has emerged in a race to protect anonymity from "Big Brother." "This involves the creation and implementaion of cryptology to names and locations on the web, to protect a user against being "watched" online. Many people oppose this idea, saying it will aid the coordination of different terrorist groups and groups such as "anonymous"."

Noting that "Humans are not the only speakers in this intricate language" Ecij explores the world of bots online, bots that "patrol the internet, performing tasks a human could never take on alone. Never in our past have humans created machines that function with such useful or destructive artificial intelligence, interacting with billions of people everyday. Web bots have revolutionized our commerce, politics, entertainment, theft, and online communication networks that compose the massive collection of different cultures exposed to the internet. Everything we have ever associated with human behavior must be reconsidered and redefined within the context of bots. These bots analyze, create, collect, and distribute inconceivable amounts of data and respond to human or bot-produced stimuli, facilitating a vast array of desired outcomes by the people who use them. The untrained observer cannot distinguish between internet bots and other humans, and eventually the lines between human and computer program will become as inconspicuous as has the written word."

And so we start to shake the very foundations of what it means to be somebody, to be part of a community, and to be human. As Ecij notes, the implications
challenge our "concepts of individuality and anonymity" as we "bring the imagination to a vision of transhumanism: a boundless accumulation of human creativity and knowledge that seems to assemble itself in the vast encyclopedia of the internet."