Conclusion

On our time spent digging in the dirt

Like the broader world that subsumes and predates it, the ambivalent internet defies easy explanation. While there is quite a lot – tonally, behaviorally, aesthetically – connecting moments present to moments past (a statement as true now as it was a century ago), the present moment is replete with whole new reasons to throw up one's hands in desperation, exasperation, or bemusement. It is difficult, for instance, to know how best – most effectively, most humanely, most democratically – to respond to online speech that antagonizes, marginalizes, or otherwise silences others. On one level, this is a logistic question about what can be done, what available digital tools can be harnessed or created to help mitigate or even prevent online hate and harassment. The deeper and more vexing question is what should be done. This question is especially pressing when considering the profound, embodied distress experienced when individuals' identities are deliberately hijacked and spun, without consent, without compassion, intractably out of control by the commentary, critique, and play of others.

But vernacular expression online, just like vernacular expression offline, is a spectrum; not all cases meet the threshold of outright harassment. Much more common are behaviors that aren't pointedly aggressive and silencing as much as they are, well, strange. Cookie Monster screaming about sugar in his ass. Garlic bread remix art. A comment apocalypse in response to a rainbow tie-dye cake recipe posted by a radio station. Not that these cases are resoundingly positive; as ambivalent expression, they can tear down one group even as they build up another. Myopic play with the “Bed Intruder” meme, fetishized laughter directed at Tommy Wiseau's earnest cinematic efforts, and the litany of Three Wolf Moon Amazon reviews amplifying classist stereotypes all evidence this potential.

Whether mostly antagonizing, mostly amusing, mostly confounding, or mostly a combination of all three, online expressions that don't fit into any discernable category, which show a different face from every angle, and which are as likely to elicit a furrowed brow as an uncontrollable giggle, are extremely difficult to pin down. There are simply no universalizing theories to apply, and no self-contained textual analyses to conduct. The reasons for this difficulty are every bit as messy as the expressions themselves. First are the complications ushered in by the affordances of digital media, which allow just about anyone to modify, recontextualize, and further amplify just about anything. The communication imperative facilitates this process again and again, as more and more people create and explore and tinker with themselves across a variety of digital platforms. And reduced social risk, often spurred on by anonymity, allows these tinkerings to veer into territory that participants might be inclined to avoid in embodied spaces, for better and for worse.

What emerges from this cacophony isn't a singular, self-contained, easily traceable litany of texts, authors, and meanings. Rather, online spaces are tangled with tissues upon tissues of quotations, multiplicities upon multiplicities of authors, and densely knotted meanings hinging not on who made what thing, or even on the thing itself, but on what memetic motifs resonate with an unknown number of unseen audiences, who can further their own resonant meanings simply by posting a link. Here even classification can be a problem; something might look like X behavior (a joke, a sincere argument, evidence of affective attunement), but thanks to Poe's Law prodded along by context collapse, it's not always possible to verify that it is indeed X behavior. And even if it is X behavior now, with some people, it may have started out as something else entirely, with the when, or where, or why remaining elusive. Such, such, such are the joys of the ambivalent internet.

As normal sources of meaning – the text itself, the author who created it, and the intended messages of both – are untenable, the most pressing question here is therefore not can or should we respond, but how do we respond, what is there to even say? This conclusion will suggest a way forward, drawing from Mary Douglas' (1966) concept of “dirt work” laid out in the Introduction and seeded throughout each chapter. As Douglas explains, behaviors and values deemed dirty or taboo couldn't exist without a sense of cleanliness and propriety to compare them to. By exploring fringe elements (at least, the elements regarded as fringe within a particular culture or community), one is therefore able to identify traditional norms and values. Applied to online ambivalence, a dirt work approach allows observers to sidestep what can't be known (textual origins, creators' intent, immutable meaning), and instead focus on what can be known. Namely, how specific vernacular expressions – however unusual or unintelligible they might appear – illuminate and often complicate broader cultural logics. A process that functions, essentially, to extract norms from that which is not normal.

To illustrate this process, we will turn to one last oddity as we part: a 2016 remix video called “Trump Effect.” Essentially a smashcut of each chapter, the video is an exemplar of folkloric expression, identity play, constitutive humor, collective storytelling, and public debate. It is also profoundly ambivalent, making it a perfect candidate for our final dirt work analysis.

Ambivalence all the way down

On March 30, 2016, Twitter user @immigrant4trump tweeted a dizzying 2-minute 30-second YouTube video at then-Republican Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump. The video, entitled “Trump Effect,” opens with Trump making a barking sound. “What was that?” he asks. “Is that a dog?” He laughs. “It's Hillary!” Jump cut to several scenes of chaos at political demonstrations. A gun fires three shots in quick succession. A police officer appears on-screen, blood dripping down his forehead. A voiceover begins; it's the villainous, xenophobic, fascist Illusive Man from the videogame Mass Effect 2. The Illusive Man's in-game monologue, performed by American actor Martin Sheen, is repurposed for Trump's cause. “We're at war,” the Illusive Man begins. Jump cut to shots of anti-Trump protesters blocking the road at a Trump rally in Arizona, then shots of a white man walking alongside several black people at what appears to be a Black Lives Matter demonstration. “Humanity is under attack,” the Illusive Man continues. Two American flags are lying on the ground, one slightly rumpled, in front of the apparent Black Lives Matter protesters; the lone white man stands front and center. Dubbed over shots of Trump Tower, Trump ascending on an escalator, and Trump's helicopter, the Illusive Man asserts that Trump is humanity's last hope against “the greatest threat of our brief existence.” Jump cut to Trump's “Trump Ice” branded water; Trump laughs, daintily sipping water from one of the tiny bottles.

Another jump cut, this one to Trump's daughter Ivanka as she sings her father's praises. A title card flashes on screen and lists three quotes: “Donald Trump is simply awe-inspiring” – all who gaze upon him; “I wrote The Art of the Deal” – Donald Trump; “No more oreos” – Donald Trump. Back to Ivanka explaining what a dire situation the country is in, as footage labeled “FILE” in the top left corner shows a group of individuals scurrying across a road. “Border Patrol Zero Tolerance,” the bottom ticker reads. Quick cut to US soldiers, apparently being held hostage, on their knees with their hands raised to their heads. Another quick cut to CalTrans workers at the scene of a freeway overpass collapse. The music picks up tempo. Hillary Clinton is shown laughing as footage of Democratic party financier George Soros is shabbily dubbed with a raspy Sith Lord voice. “I will show you true power,” Soros says. Clinton's image shifts to stark red/black contrast; she continues shrilly laughing.

Jump cut to Trump at a podium; he raises his right hand. “We need a leader,” the Illusive Man states, one surrounded by “the brightest, the toughest, the deadliest allies we can find.” In a series of quick cuts, those allies appear: former Republican Presidential candidate Ben Carson simpers beside Trump at a podium, Trump makes a clown face standing beside New Jersey Governor Chris Christie at another podium, and Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions gesticulates wildly in front of a third podium. Blank screen, replaced by news footage announcing the move of an Indianapolis factory to Mexico: 1,400 workers are expected to lose their jobs. Ben Carson reappears, apparently half-asleep. He mumbles that it's not about political party, it's about the people of America. His eyes flutter shut. The image of a tattered American flag flies in the background, followed by a black man in an Army combat uniform splayed out, eyes closed, on the sidewalk next to a cane.

Jump cut to an image of US President Barack Obama addressing Congress. Trump speaks, as footage of Congress, abandoned houses, and Obama grinning as he awkwardly lifts small hand weights rattle by: “Too many mistakes are being made by the politicians! Too many mistakes are being made by people that truly DON'T know what they're doing! We can't have it anymore!” A poorly lit shot of Trump smiling and laughing appears on screen. “We're gonna turn it around!” he continues, as a close-up of a raindrop falls onto a leaf. The music swells; the clouds part; Trump's voice grows more emphatic. “We are gonna become rich again! We're gonna become great again! We're gonna turn it around fast!” he shouts, backdropped by a series of quick cuts: time-lapsed city streets, a cable modem bathed in green light, Trump Tower from street level, more freeways, the milliseconds flying past on a digital clock, and Trump, backlit at a campaign rally, as a young man standing in the audience wears a sweatshirt that reads, in hand-drawn lettering, “KKK Endorses.”

“Nobody's gonna tell us what to do, we're not gonna take it,” Trump bellows as an American flag flies proud. “I'm working for you folks!” Now there is an astronaut on the moon. “We're gonna win at every. Single. Level,” he promises, offset by images of more astronauts and a jumbo jet that appears to have been shot in front of a green screen. “We're gonna win so much you're gonna get sick and tired of it!” Jump cut to a shot of Trump scowling as he lumbers away from his helicopter, the rotors still spinning. “And I'm gonna say, I don't care! We're gonna keep winning!” Cuts to a bald eagle's face; fireworks over the Jefferson Memorial; a bald eagle soaring. Back to the American flag. “Because we're gonna make America great again, we're gonna make it greater. Than EVERRR. Before!!!” Shot of a bald eagle in profile; two shots of fireworks; three shots of the Statue of Liberty, each taken at different times of day.

Fade to black. A title card repurposing Mass Effect 2's cyberpunk logo reads “Trump Effect.” A quick cut to “Coming Fall 2016.” Hillary Clinton appears after the tagline dissolves; she barks like a dog. “BEWARE OF DOG,” another title card flashes. A third appears: “The American people are DONE with career politicians.” Jump cut to an image collage of racially diverse Trump supporters, racially diverse Trump rallies, and Trump kissing black babies. “GO OUT & Vote For Trump,” the final title card reads. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”

Like so many examples featured in this book, “Trump Effect” generates more questions than it answers. It is unclear, first of all, how or when Twitter user @immigrant4trump first encountered “Trump Effect”; perhaps he (at least he presents on Twitter as male) made the video himself, perhaps not. Whether or not the video was “his,” a week after he tweeted the video at Trump, Trump retweeted the link, captioned with the message “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” to his millions of followers. Why Trump chose to do so is also a mystery. Maybe he was taken in by the hyper-patriotic message, and was retweeting the video as an affirmative “USA! USA!” fistpump. Maybe he realized that the video was satirical, or realized that it could have been satirical, but also realized that by retweeting it, he would dominate that day's news cycle (which he did). Maybe it wasn't even Trump retweeting, but instead a member of his staff operating under any number of inscrutable motivations.

Regardless of who actually clicked the button, the retweet was an …intriguing …choice, especially given Trump's uneasy symbiosis with white nationalist groups; the video is, after all, explicitly racist in its framing of Mexican immigrants and Black Lives Matter protesters, footage of whom is synced with the proclamation that “humanity is under attack.” But even if Trump was using “Trump Effect” to wave hello to America's racists, his apparent endorsement of its underlying message was still confusing, as the video is not – at least to many didn't seem to be – resoundingly complimentary. Beyond its apparent hyperbole, beyond its absurdity, is the incongruity of using a megalomaniacal xenophobic videogame villain to endorse a Presidential candidate. Even Mass Effect developers were baffled. As noted in an April 4 response tweet by Mass Effect developer Manveer Heir, the Illusive Man is “verifiably the bad guy in the game,” making Trump's retweet, essentially, an admission of that villainy. At least an affirmation of his imperial ambitions. And so, whether or not “Trump Effect” was a joke, it sure made a lot of people laugh. And then pause, because what in the hell did they just watch?

While “Trump Effect” offers little in the way of concrete certainty, the ambivalence dirt work present in each chapter provides the tools needed to start digging. First, Chapter 1's focus on the overlap between then and now calls attention to the historical continuities and divergences between politics pre- and post-internet. Trump sure seems like a new breed of politician triggering a new form of political discourse, and digital affordances unquestionably amplify his message and overall persona in ways never before possible. But the historical record reveals that, actually, Trump is but one in a long line of populist demagogues dog whistling, or outright shouting from a bullhorn, their racist ideologies. Folkloric dirt work also reveals the hybrid intertwine between vernacular creativity and corporate output, as the “Trump Effect” video stitches together its folkloric narrative using a dramatic musical score, appropriated news footage, and the voiceover of a popular actor ripped from EA Games' intellectual property – ultimately prompting the company to file a copyright claim on the grounds that use of “game assets” for “campaign propaganda” was “#gross” (Orland 2016).

Building on these emphases, Chapter 2's discussion of the interpenetration of online and offline spaces illustrates the video's dizzying mediated ping-pong. “Trump Effect” is a digital video featuring clips of digitally rendered and embodied footage tweeted to and retweeted by an all-too-real Republican Presidential candidate, a story instantly picked up by online, hybrid, and traditional media and subsequently engaged, spread, and debated by participants across social media and the dinner table alike. Further, the chapter's focus on the breakdown between individuals and the collectives they navigate highlights the mask alignment between those who chose to create and further amplify the video, and the audiences these individuals were performing for. Whatever their reasons for doing so, from earnest solidarity to chortling irony, each participant in the “Trump Effect” story was posing for someone else's camera; the me predicated on an affectively attuned us.

And in so doing, participants were evidencing the dirt work outlined in Chapter 3, which challenges the demarcation between world-building and world-destroying – or at least world-restricting – laughter. No matter who was included in any of the “Trump Effect” play frames, whether progressive rubberneckers or alt-right instigators or white nationalist foot soldiers, a line was drawn between an us who laughed and an othered them, which could run the gamut from Trump's supporters, Trump himself, Black Lives Matter activists, Mass Effect game developers, and who knows who or what else. Where any of these play frames began and ended was unknown and unknowable, resulting in countless indeterminate bites. Maybe some participants were just being silly. Maybe some were sincerely excited about the prospect of a Trump presidency. Maybe some were sincerely horrified that this was even a possibility. Whoever ended up laughing at whom, and whatever kind of laughter this might have been, the social and anti-social, the generative and destructive, were interchangeable.

Building on the constitutive underpinnings of vernacular expression online, Chapter 4's dismantling of the presumed singularity of authors, texts, and meanings underscores the heteroglossic multiplicity of “Trump Effect.” The video may have been created by one person, but even in this ostensibly singular act of creation, the creator was channeling a chorus of Trump supporters and detractors, and providing this chorus further materials for further expression. But “Trump Effect” isn't just a remix of a panoply of texts. It's also a remix of a panoply of narrative motifs. More narrowly, the video draws from and celebrates the American cultural imaginary – essentially, the stories about America that Americans tell themselves, from myths of American exceptionalism to myths of America as a shining city on a hill to myths about kickin yer ass when times get tough. More broadly, “Trump Effect” centers on the hero-savior motif. Trump is the last hope for a dying civilization, the video darkly warns. Good (Trump) must triumph over evil (Hillary Clinton and the dark Democratic regime of progressive activism), or we're all doomed – in the process echoing every epic ever told, from Gilgamesh to the story of Jesus to the wizarding world of Harry Potter. Countless voices, working in concert and in conflict, across era, across media, are channeled through resonant motifs that persist regardless of whether they're employed to satirize, celebrate, or something in between.

Chapter 5's analysis of the evil, overlapping twins of conflict and unity and affect and rationality constitutes one last site of dirt work. “Trump Effect” evidences each intertwined impulse, representing for each participant, regardless of political orientation, a constitutive us to align oneself with, and by extension, a them to clash against. This alignment (and clashing) bespeaks connection and affinity and, in many cases, deep aversion – all animating the impulse to participate in public discourse, whether the underlying argument is one of support (“Trump 2016!”) or denouncement (“Anyone but Trump 2016!”) or even apathy (“It doesn't matter, we're screwed either way!”). There would be no reason to talk, to clash, to rally around a particular cause and rally against those in disagreement, if one didn't feel something strongly first.

All these twists and turns culminate in our final point of ambivalence. Because of the tissues and remixes and modified masks and Poe's Law explosions, we can't know much about “Trump Effect.” And, we can learn a great deal from “Trump Effect.” Not by focusing on the obvious entry points, i.e. the text itself or its creator or what they hoped to accomplish by posting, but how this video – how all the case studies we've explored in this book – complicate so many of our most basic assumptions. For example, that now is not then. That you are not us. That socializing is positive. That texts and authors and meanings have borders. That fighting is the opposite of togetherness, and emotion is the opposite of argument. What “Trump Effect” does, if approached just so, is show that none of these assumptions is as obvious or as clear or even as helpful as we might expect or prefer them to be.

This is not a conclusion that can be reached by starting at the center. This is a conclusion that can only be reached by starting at the margins, with behaviors that don't clearly fit anywhere. Considering why these expressions don't fit, and what strictures are in place to ensure that they can't, teaches us what actually composes that center. And further, how much fracture the center obscures. Through dirt work, ambivalent expression that seems like just a ghost story, just a gorilla meme, just a political remix, is thus revealed to be so much bigger, so much messier, and so much more intertwined with everything else. A jumble that is, appropriately enough, both the ultimate source of and ultimate hindrance to meaningful cultural insight. Ambivalence all the way down.