Thi Le
Prof. Knight
COMM 3342
May 6th 2012
9gag.com and American Stereotypes
As savvy Internet users have been very familiar with reddit.com or 4chan.org, a younger version of those sites is 9gag.com. 9gag.com is a distribution, yet is also developed to become a sensation itself. However, unlike reddit.com or 4chan.org, the demographic of 9gag.com has a more international user fraction of it. With the saying "Just for fun!," 9gag.com content has a wide content variety ranging from funny photos, rage comics, or random daily incidents of the users. However, one of the most popular topics on 9gag.com is about American stereotypes. The global audience makes fun of Americans about their stupidity and obesity because the pop culture and social media have excessively conveyed the American images in those ways internationally.
Stereotyping is inevitable and it is represented in every culture; however, the most two dominant American stereotypes on 9gag are stupidity and obesity. As users scroll down 9gag page, they would come across posts about Snooki in Jersey Shore, Kim Kardashian, or President George Bush. They stand for "stupid Americans." Moreover, McDonalds, Burger King, or fat people in general will stand for "obese Americans." According to 9gag statistics, its most popular audience is Internet users with 18 to 24 years of age and 70 percent of them are not from the United States. Even though the United States ranks number one in the obesity rate with 30.1 percent of the population, to assign one attribution to the whole nation is absurd. The nature of the Internet does not have any certain regulations about the content posted and this characteristic promotes remix culture. Thus, 9gag.com users use footages or pictures from American T.V. shows, for instance, Jersey Shore, music videos, to create parodies making fun of Americans in general. For example, user akshaydvsingh posts a picture of Kim Kardarshian in her bikini holding a book called Quantum Physics with "Are you fucking kidding me?" meme at the bottom of the picture. The screen capture is from a California TV commercial and Kim Kardarshian's line is, "People have misconceptions about California that aren't really true" (Kim Kardarshian in California TV Commercial - Dirt TV). This leads to a bombarding shower of comments on her superficial appearance in the video. Another picture posted on 9gag.com is about Rihanna in one of her interviews. The caption says, "Sometimes I had to just stop recording because the lyrics were too deep. They would leave me in tears," and below that is a screen capture of her music video with a line of the lyric, "Come here rude boy. Boy is you big enough."
The image represents a part of what U.S. mainstream is covering. While 9gag community is praising Queen, Pink Floyd, and other legendary music of the old times, they are criticizing the content of pop culture nowadays. The commentary does not stop at only U.S pop culture celebrities such as Lady Gaga, Rihanna, etc., but also the whole audience who does not filter those contents and let them absorb in their cultures. This infers that the blame is put on the media coverage and the media is brainwashing the younger generations. 9gag community constantly talks about how today's generations are so spoiled and unappreciative because the superficial and flashy shows are aired. For instance, user mr_karolis posts an image depicting the differences between 90s generation and today's generation. While the 90s kids were happy with regular toys, nowadays generation is surrounded with many high-tech devices and still shouting for more. The content of these issues on 9gag simply accuses the media and celebrities on the young generations' behaviors, but they forget to take human agency into account. According to Slack and Wise, "a technology is never alone or isolated; it is always connected with other actors, that is, with other technologies and people" (Slack & Wise 118). The internet has become an essential part in everyone's life. As human delegates certain tasks to technology, for example, mobile phones for communicating, cars for traveling, the technology prescribes back to human certain attributions such as thumb injuries from texting, backache, etc. 9gag.com carries the same agency on this delegation and prescription. While Internet users delegate the fun to 9gag.com by uploading funny pictures on there, the content of 9gag.com prescribes back the ways the world looks at American (or stereotypes) to its users.
As Vivaldi talks about the root of identity in How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do, he states that the conditions of life that ties to identity "come from the way a society, at a given time, is organized around an identity like race" (Vivaldi 3). On 9gag.com, the amount of the posts making fun of Americans' stupidity and obesity is too high that it frames the cognitive thinking of its users in certain ways. Let's look at a post of user luiakerfeldt. The post is a screen capture of a conversation on Omegle chat and one of the chatters comes from the U.S. The chatter comes from Mexico mocks the American one about the eating habits of American. In real life stereotypes, people are under the pressure of being accused of racist or discriminating. Even though the virtual space of the web's stereotypes is the trace of real life's reproduction, Internet users tend to be more racist because there is not any social restriction on the participatory culture of the web. This leads to another issue about close reading of Internet users. The Internet opens a whole new horizon of knowledge, yet it does not assure the censorship and filtering of content. This responsibility lays on the Internet users. However, having the privilege of accessing to the Internet does not always ensure a throughout research on one matter. 9gag users rely on the content of the post and assume the posts are right, which means that the American stereotypes in media coverage (e.g. Jersey Shore, fat American, etc.) exist. In real life, when discrimination happens, it is based on the physical attributions of an individual; while online, the stereotypes are restricted within textual contexts. One of the posts posted by user itsvanessawedel is a screen capture of a Tumblr post which shows a brief conversation. While a user kingofshoottheshit asks, "How much is that in real money?" to "€14.95" and the user has not revealed any identity cues, other users immediately assume kingofshoottheshit was American by posting American flags and symbols as replies. According to Nakamura:
"The majority of players in LambdaMOO do not mention race at all in their self description, though most do include eye and hair color, build, age, and the pronouns which indicate a male or a female gender. In these cases when race is not mentioned as such, but hair and eye color is race is still being evoked <a character with blue eyes and blond hair will be assumed to be white>.
(Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet)
The fact that the user kingofshoottheshit does not reveal any identity definitions, yet under textual conditions, he slips out a "silly" question, immediately makes others assume him to be a "stupid American." Though the United States ranks second in countries with the most Internet user lists, the utopian belief-system that Americans are stupid is prevalent in online communities (Internet Users - Top 20 Countries).
While American stupid T.V. shows are being assumed to be the rest of the American population, American's funny and good shows, for example, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, etc., are being praised. However, the praise is not about how smart American people are but about one individual in the show. For instance, user dcsnad posts a quote saying, "That awkward moment when you realize you will never be as awesome as Barney Stinson" with a picture of the character Barney in How I Met Your Mother series. Even though those are American T.V. shows, no one has ever mentioned how smart or intelligent Americans are in those shows. It is because the stereotypes of stupidity and obesity are too dominant which makes Internet users not want to admit the differences.
Overall, 9gag.com is a fun playground for young international Internet users, yet the American stereotypes are still prevalent in this community. It is understood that stereotyping in any cultures is inevitable, but the contents of 9gag about American represent what the media is covering with posts about superficial celebrities. Moreover, the nature of the Internet promotes free speech and remix culture which gives Internet users more space to reflect their actual thoughts about a certain topic. From the posts on 9gag.com, the images of Americans to global audience are "stupidity" and "obesity."
Reference
"Health Statistics." Nation Master. 2003 - 2012. Web. 05/06/2012. < http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_obe-health-obesity>.
Nakumura, Lisa. "Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet." UCI School of Humanities. N.p., n.d. Web. 05/06/2012 <http://www.internetworldstats.com/top20.htm>
Vivaldi. How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. Print.
Slack & Wise. Culture and Technology. New York, NY: Third Printing, 2007. Print.
Kim Kardashian In California TV commercial - The Dirt TV. YouTube.com, 2010. Web. 6 May 2012. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUOamijjgdc>.
akshaydvsingh. Kim KIDarshian!!. 2012. Photograph. 9gag.comWeb. 6 May 2012. <http://9gag.com/gag/1805665>.
mister_karolis. Generations. 2012. Photograph. 9gag.comWeb. 6 May 2012. <http://9gag.com/gag/1330009>.
luiakerfeldt. Just an American. 2012. Photograph. 9gag.comWeb. 6 May 2012. <http://9gag.com/gag/1374517>.
itsvanessawedel. Americans. Photograph. 9gag.comWeb. 6 May 2012. <http://9gag.com/gag/2441789>.
dcsnad. Just Barney Stinos. Photograph. 9gag.comWeb. 6 May 2012. <http://9gag.com/gag/1830391>.