Language and Culture Essay

22 December 2017

How #NastyWoman Sparked Conversation

Today, in the 21st century, discourses are constantly mixed with how we talk online

versus what we say in person. Sometimes it becomes a hashtag on Twitter, sometimes a meme,

or it could be a phrase trending on Facebook. Either way, online speech, links from news clips,

or things people say on TV all take effect on our daily discourse. The #NastyWoman became a

commonly seen Twitter hashtag, trended on Facebook, and it was originally seen through a live

debate between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton. The internet took this phrase and turned it

into something more. In the debate, Clinton is seen answering a question, where Trump rudely

interrupts and says, “such a nasty woman” (Gray, “How 'Nasty Woman' Became A Viral Call

For Solidarity”). This was one of the first times that Trump openly and publically called Clinton

a nasty woman, and from this debate, the internet exploded with responses. Not only were people

openly distressed in their face-to face conversations with others, but the internet had the words

trending with a multitude of meanings and implications. One implication in particular was an

indirect speech act.

There were many responses to the phrase #NastyWoman and here are a few examples

provided by the article, “How ‘Nasty Woman’ Became a Viral Call for Solidarity” by Emma

Gray:
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Here, the #IAmANastyWomanBecause is used as a misinvocation. People did not assume Trump

had the authority to make accusations against Clinton and they took the term as a compliment or

form of resistance to what was happening politically at that time. It is not being used as the insult

implicated by Trump. In each of these tweets there are references to situations happening during

the political climate during this time period. The dates of these tweets are Oct 20th, 2016, which

was before the election took place. People are using the hashtag as a way to form identity and

make a stance on a political topic, Ash Evans states in her article, “Stance and Identity in Twitter

Hashtags”, the ways in which hashtags form a sense of identity and community, “The users

demonstrate that they can fulfill all facets of DuBois’ stance triangle by evaluating, positioning,

and aligning with objects without the explicit presence of another social actor” (“Stance and

Identity in Twitter Hashtags”). These users in the above tweets all saw the debate between

Clinton and Trump, aligned themselves to support Clinton, and then by using the hashtag showed

their alliance by creating a space of support that allowed others to know their political stance.
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The hashtag had the ability in this context to show the audience their personal political stance,

without actually stating their political beliefs. The internet, however did not only have this one

response to #NastyWoman, there were in fact examples of the hashtag used as a direct speech

act.

#NastyWoman was used as a direct speech act in the sense the users meant the hashtag to

imply their dislike for who they were directing their tweet towards. There are numerous accounts

that use the #NastyWoman as a direct speech act, where the people tweeting call woman in

particular a #NastyWoman:

These tweeter’s use #NastyWoman, not in the commonly seen context of its indirect speech act,

but instead the direct speech act and how Trump meant it to be implied. The first one, where a

person responds to a tweet made by Hillary Clinton, writes about how she is a #NastyWoman,

#stillnotpresident and #MAGA. (#MAGA is a commonly used acronym of Trump supporters to

mean ‘make America great again’.) In this example, the user is responding directly to a woman

and using the exact words that Trump used in the debate. He uses the #NastyWoman as an insult,

and not a form of reclamation. The other tweet is disturbingly portrays how an actress spoke out

about her experiences at airport security. The tweeter uses #NastyWoman as a way to make a
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sexual innuendo about the actress. These are both examples of a negative interactions on social

media using this hashtag. These tweets are an example of what Michele Zappavigna discusses in

her article, “Searchable Talk: the Linguistic Functions of Hashtags”. In the article, she states,

“the main function of these interpersonally orientated tags has little to do with aggregating posts

into searchable sets and much more to do with adopting particular attitudinal dispositions

involved in enacting different kinds of microblogging identities”. The posts are not about

building community as the others were, they are about building a particular platform with their

twitter account to an unknown or imagined audience. In this context, the #NastyWoman is not

adopting the common discourse that other twitter users are a part of. Instead, it is using this act

through a means of insult and taking inappropriate content and associating it with

#NastyWoman. Twitter is not the only place where this hashtag became popular, it also became

quite frequent on Facebook.

While Twitter was the first place to use the hashtag as a concept of connectedness and

following trends, other forms of social media quickly followed suit and the hashtag became a

trend on Facebook as well. When searching #NastyWoman on Facebook, there are multiple

options for exploration, people, groups, posts, events, etc. Each option has the highlighted words

#NastyWoman shown here:

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In these examples, Facebook uses #NastyWoman to show the amount of people talking about it,

and can be narrowed down by specific time, group, or community. This helps the idea that Evans

discusses about posts being conversational on twitter, “expanding concepts such as turn-by-turn

interactions, what it means to be a participant in a conversation, and how sequences of

interaction that involve digital modalities function twitter, there is more a formation of identity

taking place” (“Stance and Identity in Twitter Hashtags”). These conversations and changes in

interactions take place on Facebook, where more conversations are being had, than compared to

Twitter, which is more about identity formation:

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In these examples of #NastyWoman there is one person who reclaims the term and discusses the

importance of community and fighting for the rights of others. Essentially, sparking

conversation, she is taking the indirect speech act and now performing the perlocutionary act as a

response. In the second example, the company Refinery29, is building community by discussing

the exact moment in the debate, which sparked all of this. The company makes its political

stances by insinuating the “share” option on Facebook, which allows people to repost content

onto their timeline. This is a locutionary act made by Refinery29, which clearly asks people to

share the content they are in support of. What is most interesting about Facebook are the

comments and conversations that are in response to this post. Over 9,000 people shared the link

and over 800 people commented on the Refinery29 post. This was a felicitous speech act because

the act of sharing and commenting is exactly what the company Refinery29 wanted from its

viewers. It’s essentially free marketing for their company when other’s share, comment, or like

their posts. These two Facebook posts show the types of discourse that differ from Twitter.

These posts are more for the intimate conversation with their Facebook friends, while also being

a part of the larger conversation happening around the country.

This discourse all began when #NastyWoman became a movement among many women

who felt their words were not being heard. By reclaiming this term and making it apply to what a

woman is capable of, the words are taking on a more indirect speech act. Darcey Brown

discusses in her article, “#Twitterdiscoursemarkers: A Corpora Based Study of the Pragmatic

Functions of Hashtags” the importance of what a hashtag can imply, she discusses that after the

#NastyWoman took place it was implied by other news sources that those using and supporting

the hashtag were in fact Clinton supporters (145). Some people saw the trend as a support for

Clinton, and urged others to stop using the hashtag as an insult to Clinton because they did not
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openly support her candidacy. The speaker, Trump, did not want others to see the words as

anything other than an insult to Clinton, yet through social media and the power of the hashtag,

the words became more impactful. Trump’s implications were infelicitous because not everyone

believed him when he called Clinton a “nasty woman” his attempts to disarm and insult were not

successful. The discourse of how people used #NastyWoman evolved and continues to take on

many different implications.

The media is not free of hate nor is there a complete approval of everyone who sees or

uses this hashtag. This conversation around #NastyWoman continues to be used today both

positively and negatively, depending on your personal stance. The hashtag is now even seen on t-

shirts, mugs and other forms of merchandise. The hashtag signifies people’s resistance and

continues to imply community among others who support liberal change. It is interesting to note

that through one debate, and a couple of people using the hashtag as a way to reclaim their

voices, many people continue to state their strong opinions through Twitter or other forms of

social media. While this hashtag did not make an overwhelming impact on everyone, it is nice to

think that it might have created an online conversation that helped create a positive change in

others.
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References

Brown, Darcey. #twitterdiscoursemarkers: A Corpora Based Study of the Pragmatic Functions

of Hashtags. Aug. 2017, uta-ir.tdl.org/uta-

ir/bitstream/handle/10106/26992/BROWNING-DISSERTATION-2017.pdf?sequence=1.

Evans, Ash. (2016) Stance and identity in Twitter hashtags. Language@Internet, vol. 13.

(http://www.languageatinternet.org/articles/2016/evans)

Gray, Emma. “How 'Nasty Woman' Became A Viral Call For Solidarity.” The Huffington Post,

TheHuffingtonPost.com, 21 Oct. 2016, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nasty-woman-

became-a-call-of-solidarity-for-women-voters_us_5808f6a8e4b02444efa20c92.

Zappavigna, Michele. “Searchable Talk: the Linguistic Functions of Hashtags.” Social Semiotics,

2015, pp. 1–18.