Sense and sensibility in intellectual discourse on YouTube: Anti-emotional positioning in the case of Affleck vs. Harris

ABSTRACT

This article aims to explain the behaviour of public intellectuals, celebrities, and media audiences in the construction of anti-emotional narratives in the online culture wars. In the investigation of how these narratives are constructed on YouTube, the article focuses on the rhetorical juxtaposition of rationality and emotionality surrounding the viral argument between public intellectual Sam Harris and Hollywood star Ben Affleck on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, uploaded to YouTube. The video is an apt example of the positioning dynamics on YouTube, where an increased integration of media content with its context of reception unsettles the positioning process by which the authority of both intellectuals and celebrities is negotiated and culture war narratives constructed. In conclusion, the article reflects on the relationship between the increasingly affective nature of online communication and the simultaneous emergence of a strict dichotomy between rationality and emotionality in anti-woke culture war narratives.

KEYWORDS:

• Sam Harris
• Ben Affleck
• emotions
• positioning
• culture war

Acknowledgments

A first version of the close reading presented in this article was included in the author’s PhD dissertation, which is publicly available through University of Copenhagen, but not published by any journal or publisher. The author wishes to thank his PhD supervisor Nete Nørgaard Kristensen for providing constructive feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Timestamps in parentheses refer to the YouTube clip listed in references.

2. Numbers in parentheses refer to specific user comments sampled in an ordered list (1–30) on 14 February 2023.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mikkel Bækby Johansen

Mikkel Bækby Johansen, is a postdoctoral researcher at Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics at University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He holds a PhD in Media Studies from University of Copenhagen, where he is currently affiliated with the Horizon Europe project SMIDGE (2023–2026). He has contributed with a chapter, ‘Public intellectuals on new platforms: Constructing critical authority in the digital age’ in the edited volume: Rethinking Cultural Criticism: New Voices in the Digital Age (2021), and written his PhD dissertation, Public Intellectualism in the Digital Age: The Case of the Intellectual Dark Web on YouTube, on public intellectuals, culture wars, and the YouTube practices associated with the Intellectual Dark Web.