Homophobia on the Internet Transcript

So back in elementary school there used to be this joke running around where
some kid would walk up to me and ask, say x really fast. Not wanting to back
down from a challenge, I would do it (Says letter x quickly) and then they would go
(snickers) you just said sex. To be honest at the time I didnt really even
understand what the heck that I meant I just know that I had somehow embarrassed
myself somehow. As it turns out I have matured a little bit in the past 10 years
because today we are going to talk about how people feel about sexual orientations.
You thought we were going to talk about intercourse, didnt you? Im sorry but that
isnt my field of expertise and no it isnt because Im Asian. How does it feel to be a
racist? Anyway my name is Alan Su and todays topic of discussion is (Title: Is
homophobia more prevalent on the internet than it is in the public circle?).
So here is the story; the topic of homosexuality comes up every once in a
while in my life through media outlets like radio or TV, through the classroom, or
through my personal conversations with other people and as far as I can tell every
time I hear about it people seem to be overwhelmingly supportive of it, but then Id
go home and watch a video on Jason Collins and see comments like these (image of
YouTube comments) or these (image of YouTube comments). So it got me
wondering; is homophobia actually more prevalent on the internet than it is in real
life? Before I tell you what I found I want to talk about why people are afraid of
homosexuals in the first place and why there is reason to believe that homophobia
would be more prevalent on the internet. Now when I say afraid of I dont
necessarily mean that every time you meet a gay person you go like (gasp of fear).
What I do mean is that maybe you talk to a gay person, does that make you feel
nervous? Anxious? Horny? Thats OK too man. Do you feel the need to treat them
differently? Do you think that what they feel is wrong? Thats what I mean when I
say afraid of homosexuals. Maybe you experience those feelings and maybe you
dont, I know certainly some people do. Where those feelings of fear originate from
nobody can say for sure. It could just be a fear of something different. It could be
religion, not talking that topic. I will be viewing this topic from a feminist
perspective. In America we live in what is called a patriarchal society; we view
males to be the superior gender and females to be inferior to males. Now obviously
I dont agree with the belief that males are superior to females and most of you
watching probably dont either. If you go around the country and explicitly ask
someone do you think men are superior to women Id guess that most people
would probably say no. Whether or not we believe in this idea that men are superior
to women or not most of us tend to unconsciously behave in ways that reinforce
that notion anyway. Something common to patriarchal societys is something called
hegemonic masculinity. Men are expected to be tough, strong, rugged, and
detached from their emotions. Men are expected to like women, men are expected
to have sex with women. So what happens to these homosexual men who
obviously dont fit in to this hegemonic masculinity is that they are stripped of their
masculinity entirely. Recently however, I think its pretty clear that as a country we
are becoming more open-minded about all sexualities. So why would I think that

somehow homophobia is more prevalent on the internet than it is in real life? There
is something called the online disinhibition effect. So suppose there is this person
who really doesnt like homosexuals. This person is less likely to voice his opinion in
public because as I said as a society we are becoming more accepting of all sexual
orientations. Meaning that if this person started bashing homosexuals in public
there is a pretty good chance that there would be some backlash. Because damage
to someones reputation is probably enough of a deterrent to keep them silent. So I
tried to find some formal research on this topic; see if someone has actually done a
scientific study on this topic and unfortunately I only found one.
Kian Edwards and his associates conducted a study in which they analyzed
nearly 7000 posts on a football message board Rivals.com and what they found is
that only a very small minority of posters there were posting blatantly homophobic
responses. However whats interesting there were also a lot of posts that were
sexist, racist, xenophobic, mocked the military, and other things of that sort but that
isnt the interesting part. What is interesting is that when it came to posts that were
racist, xenophobic, or mocked the military there was always some sort of negative
response however when it came to sexist of homophobic posts people seemed to
just let it slide. So because people who made homophobic posts were the vast
minority these researchers came to the conclusion that homophobia is no longer a
requirement of hegemonic masculinity. They were, however, unable to determine
why these homophobic posts werent being contested. So back to the original
question: is homophobia more prevalent on the internet? My answer is yes, I
think. To be honest the one study conducted by Kian Edwards and his associates
isnt really enough. Homophobia may or may not be more prevalent on the internet.
I think what Kian Edwards study made clear though is that homophobia is still
acceptable on the internet and that really sucks. We are definitely making progress
though. I remember 10 years ago when I was in middle school homosexuals were
oftentimes the subject of jokes and were mercilessly mocked. This video is already
way longer than Id intended it to be so I hope you guys learned something today
and I will see you later.