Context collapse and anonymity among queer Reddit users

This article maps out how people in queer communities on Reddit navigate context collapse. Drawing upon data from interviews with queer Reddit users and insights from other studies of context collapse in digital media, we argue that context collapse also occurs in anonymity-based social media. The interviews reveal queer Reddit users’ practices of context differentiation, occurring at four levels: somatic, system, inter-platform and intra-platform. We use these levels to map out how lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer or questioning (LGBTQ) people express their identities and find community on Reddit while seeking to minimize the risks imposed by multiple impending context collapses. Because living an authentic queer life can make subjects vulnerable, we find that despite Reddit’s anonymity, sophisticated practices of context differentiation are developed and maintained. We argue that context collapse in an era of big data and social media platforms operates beyond the control of any one user, which causes problems, particularly for queer people.

[1]  Jenny L. Davis,et al.  Context collapse: theorizing context collusions and collisions , 2014 .

[2]  M. Wesch.  YouTube and You Experiences of Self-Awareness in the Context Collapse of the Recording Webcam , 2009, Explorations in Media Ecology.

[3]  Danah Boyd,et al.  I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience , 2011, New Media Soc..

[4]  J. Ahlm.  Respectable promiscuity: Digital cruising in an era of queer liberalism , 2017 .

[5]  Shelley J. Correll,et al.  THE ETHNOGRAPHY OF AN ELECTRONIC BAR , 1995 .

[6]  Sharif Mowlabocus.  Gaydar Culture: Gay Men, Technology and Embodiment in the Digital Age , 2010, Psychology of Sexualities Review.

[7]  J. Campbell,et al.  Getting It On Online: Cyberspace, Gay Male Sexuality, and Embodied Identity , 2004 .

[8]  Jeremy P. Birnholtz,et al.  Seeing and being seen: Co-situation and impression formation using Grindr, a location-aware gay dating app , 2015, New Media Soc..

[9]  Kimberly M. Christopherson.  The positive and negative implications of anonymity in Internet social interactions: "On the Internet, Nobody Knows You're a Dog" , 2007, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[10]  L. Price,et al.  Development of a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Visibility Management Scale , 2010, Journal of homosexuality.

[11]  Jay D. Hmielowski,et al.  Context collapse and privacy management: Diversity in Facebook friends increases online news reading and sharing , 2018, New Media Soc..

[12]  Nicole B. Ellison,et al.  Social network sites: definition, history, and scholarship , 2010 .

[13]  Kerry J. Burner,et al.  Identity, context collapse, and Facebook use in higher education: putting presence and privacy at odds , 2017, Social Presence and Identity in Online Learning.

[14]  Alex Leavitt,et al.  "This is a Throwaway Account": Temporary Technical Identities and Perceptions of Anonymity in a Massive Online Community , 2015, CSCW.

[15]  Lukasz Szulc,et al.  Navigating Online Selves: Social, Cultural, and Material Contexts of Social Media Use by Diasporic Gay Men , 2016 .

[16]  Brady Robards,et al.  ‘Totally straight’: Contested sexual identities on social media site reddit , 2018 .

[17]  Michael Nebeling Petersen,et al.  Bleeding boundaries: Domesticating gay hook-up apps , 2018 .

[18]  Stefanie Duguay,et al.  “He has a way gayer Facebook than I do”: Investigating sexual identity disclosure and context collapse on a social networking site , 2014, New Media Soc..

[19]  Helen Nissenbaum,et al.  Privacy in Context , 2009 .

[20]  Eve Ng.  A “Post-Gay” Era? Media Gaystreaming, Homonormativity, and the Politics of LGBT Integration , 2013 .

[21]  J. DiPlacido.  Minority stress among lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals: A consequence of heterosexism, homophobia, and stigmatization. , 1998 .

[22]  Danah Boyd,et al.  Networked privacy: How teenagers negotiate context in social media , 2014, New Media Soc..

[23]  Jessica Vitak.  The Impact of Context Collapse and Privacy on Social Network Site Disclosures , 2012 .

[24]  Jed R. Brubaker,et al.  Departing glances: A sociotechnical account of ‘leaving’ Grindr , 2016, New Media Soc..

[25]  J. Dijck.  The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media , 2013 .

[26]  K. Albury,et al.  Safe on My Phone? Same-Sex Attracted Young People’s Negotiations of Intimacy, Visibility, and Risk on Digital Hook-Up Apps , 2016 .

[27]  Emily van der Nagel.  Faceless Bodies: Negotiating Technological and Cultural Codes on Reddit Gonewild , 2013 .

[28]  Adrienne Rich,et al.  Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence , 1980, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.

[29]  Joshua Meyrowitz,et al.  No sense of place , 1985 .

[30]  Jordan Frith,et al.  Anonymity, pseudonymity, and the agency of online identity: Examining the social practices of r/Gonewild , 2015, First Monday.

[31]  D. Boyd.  Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics , 2010 .

[32]  Gavin Brown.  Homonormativity: A Metropolitan Concept that Denigrates “Ordinary” Gay Lives , 2012, Journal of homosexuality.

[33]  Danny Miller,et al.  Polymedia: Towards a new theory of digital media in interpersonal communication , 2013 .

[34]  Lauren Berlant,et al.  Sex in Public , 1998, Critical Inquiry.

[35]  Eve Ng.  A ‘ ‘ Post-Gay ’ ’ Era ? Media Gaystreaming , Homonormativity , and the Politics of LGBT Integration , 2013 .

[36]  L. Duggan.  The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism , 2002, Materializing Democracy.

[37]  Michael Warner,et al.  Publics and counterpublics (abbreviated version) , 2002 .

[38]  Elisabetta Costa,et al.  Affordances-in-practice: An ethnographic critique of social media logic and context collapse , 2018, New Media Soc..

[39]  A. Hepp,et al.  How to research cross-media practices? Investigating media repertoires and media ensembles , 2017 .

[40]  Helen Nissenbaum,et al.  Privacy in Context - Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life , 2009 .