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ABSTRACT
Since the 2010s, popular YouTube channels have used derogatory humour at the expense of gendered and racialised others. Founded upon the perception of an influx of ‘wokeness’ in comedy, these videos mock the mythologised ‘unfunny, angry SJW’ and teach the audience to laugh at enemies of the alt-right. Although empirical research has analysed the algorithmic radicalisation of viewers, few have addressed the role of cultural discourses in disseminating alt-right ideology through online media. Here, the right-wing ‘pipeline’ is understood as a tool of radicalisation that weaponises laughter as a tool of regulations and oppression. This paper analyzes the production of derogatory laughter by studying a network of North American content creators including Russell Peters, Lilly Singh, Jordan Peterson, Steven Crowder, and Matt Walsh, using critical tools from psychoanalysis, social psychology, and critical humour studies. Contrary to the alt-right rhetoric that ‘edgy’ humour is harmless, this paper posits derogatory humour as a tool of marginalisation and domination that reinforces white supremacist and cisnormative patriarchal value systems.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Short for ‘alternative right’, this is a network of movements and groups frustrated with mainstream conservative politics who propagate white supremacist and misogynistic views on internet forums. They are also known to berate and ridicule people whom they disagree with. (‘Alt Right,’ ADL 2017) In addition, scholars have used the term ‘alt-lite’ to refer to a subset who don’t explicitly uphold racial nationalist views. I also maintain the terminology used for the ‘Intellectual Dark Web’, a group which includes public academic figures who endorse regressive views on contemporary issues such as abortion and immigration on the internet. (Ribeiro et al Citation2020, 132).
2. Lacan uses the term ‘Other’ or ‘big Other’ to refer to any person through whom a subject encounters language, as well as the larger social structures of said language. In this Seminar, he describes the Other as the space where the ‘code’ exists (Lacan, Citation2017, pp. 10–11). This is one of the many terms he receives from Jakobson in this seminar: the code stands for a shared linguistic system between the addresser and the addressee. (Jakobson Citation1981, 21–25). Since significations emerge outside the subject, desire too emerges in the Other.
3. This is a clip from the ending of the documentary that has been reposted on YouTube alongside a ‘fair use’ Copyright Disclaimer. The official documentary is circulated on the DailyWire website behind a subscription pay gate of 12 USD monthly. (What is a Woman, Citation2022) This clip, although posted by a third-party channel with less than a hundred subscribers, has nearly a hundred-thousand views at the time of writing this paper. This free-access clip has a far greater disseminating potential through YouTube, and since it employs major alt-right and intellectual dark web figures, it is frequently recommended by the algorithm.