Ambiências homossociotécnicas : uma investigação sobre a machosfera, memes de internet e o r/brasilivre com o Reddit

Abstract

This dissertation studies the glocalization of the manosphere, here distinctly referred to as the "machosfera". This phenomenon, which coemerges with the internet, is understood as a multiplatform network that overlays male supremacy, white supremacy, and individualism supremacy, shaping and being shaped by the pathos of the "red pill"; the logos of conflicting subdivisions and factions; and the ethos of its neo-stoic and libertarian orientation. Through a qualitative methodological combination, the objective is to investigate the emergence of the machosfera as a homosociotechnical ambiance materialized through internet memes on the Reddit platform and among users of the subreddit r/brasilivre, observed in relation to the socio-historical contexts of the manosphere and the general Brazilian machosfera. In line with Science and Technology Studies (STS), which understands social and material dimensions as co-produced, an ethnographically inspired fieldwork was conducted in r/brasilivre over the course of a year (August 2021-September 2022). During the explorations, which documented the subreddit and Reddit in a diary, 398 internet memes were collected. Taken as intratextual practices that relate multiple ontologies through their performative character, which mimetically condenses memories, affects, and archetypes, the internet memes were organized into associative panels inspired by Aby Warburg. The discussions of these panels perform what this dissertation assumes as a homosociotechnical ambiance. As a perspective that combines STS, Masculinities and Communication Studies, the research argues that a sociotechnical ambiance coemerges through patriarchal-reactionary homosocial practices inextricably combined with affective-segregationist homophilic practices. In this view, the ambiance is part of a media textuality that emerges without drawing attention to itself, creating conditions, limits, and possibilities for the agency of actors who performatively enact intersectional masculinist corporealities, the multidimensions of online platforms, and internet meme strategies. The research discusses that the studied homosociotechnical ambiance emerges as more diffuse and chaotic than its national and transnational cultural references, being contingent on Reddit and the antagonisms created through internet memes, not strictly assuming a masculinist stance, but rather marked by the far-right, antifeminism, transphobia, masculinity crises, and racism.