ROFLCon, Women, and Digital Natives
Comments: 6 - Date: May 1st, 2008 - Categories: Uncategorized
This past weekend, I spent an amazing two days at ROFLCon, a conference self-described as a mix of a “bunch of super famous internet memes [and] some brainy academics.” As promised, it was provided lots of laughter but also posed some interesting questions. During the opening panel, the question was asked(I’m paraphrasing), “If the Internet is a thought of as this democratizing force, why all the panelists white men?” Various retorts and theories were thrown around the issue, and it become somewhat of a running gag throughout the conference. “I apologize for being a white male,” said Christian Lander, writer of Stuff White People Like, before beginning his talk.
As the conference progressed though, it became obvious that all the panelists were overwhelmingly male. (To be fair, Alice Marwick gave one of the keynotes and women were well-represented in both the ROFLCon attendees and organizers.) Yet if ROFLCon aims to bring together the most famous people on the Internet, it seems like the most famous people on the Internet are usually white and male, even though online interactions are usually gender-blind. What makes this particularly striking is the fact that girls are no longer a minority on the Internet. Pew Research Center’s Dec 2007 report on “Teens and Social Media” found that of teenage content creators, 55% were girls and 45% boys.
This is a sweeping generalization, of course, but it may simply be that girls are interested in using the Internet in different ways. Girls are more active on social networking sites dominate the teen blogosphere (Pew) as a way of keeping in touch with their friends. Along the same lines, there exist certain online communities online dominated by females just as there are communities dominated by males. And the type of humor that ROFLCon particularly caters to just happens to include a lot of men.
The crucial distinction is that ROFLCon does not reflect the average Digital Native. It represents certain niche communities, outside of which names such as 4chan or Anonymous have little resonance. Parsing the gender discrepancy of the panelists is really a moot point, as they represent a very specialized demographic within the Internet, not the Internet at-large. Although the exact definition may still be open to discussion, the term digital natives encompasses far more people than those whom we – for lack of a better term – would call geeks. In includes Kyle, who figured out how to connect a computer to IRC in 1st grade, and me, who’s never gone on IRC, and my roommate, who’s never heard of IRC. In short, it includes a generation of young people who have grown up immersed in this digital technology, be it cellphones, iPods, YouTube, or Facebook.
Related posts:
No Boys Allowed
“Digital Natives” Under Attack
– Sarah Zhang
Comment by Anonymous - May 2, 2008 @ 4:13 pm
who constitutes “famous” is going to be different in different circles. the main difference here is that white males tend to be the ones who like having conferences to celebrate themselves.
Comment by Adam Lindsay - May 4, 2008 @ 5:42 am
Sarah, this “running gag” had me thinking about it the whole conference. (Even before it: I’ve been painfully aware of the male skew around LOLCODE, which is why I was pleased Cheez confirmed my suspicion that it’s almost exactly the opposite around LOLCats in general.)
I was wondering which women you would have invited as being overlooked amongst the gathering of the memes.
Comment by kurquoise - May 4, 2008 @ 2:34 pm
That’s a good question, Adam, and I’ve been thinking about it after the conference too. Of course, I wasn’t involved in organizing the conference, so I don’t know was approached and who couldn’t come. The other thing is that , the Internet is about micro-celebrity, right? The names I’ll toss out reflect my Internet habits, which I think skews slightly differently from the general sensibility at ROFLCon.
I would have liked to seen some some of the women of YouTube: happyslip, lisanova, brookers, stevieryan, etc. (Though what does it say about gender “equality” if the most famous female YouTubers are all young and attractive? I’m not deriding their talents at all, but this fact is mostly true.) And there’s also the GoFugYourself women and Xeni Jardin of BoingBoing. While I can think of many famous women on the Internet, their target audience isn’t the same people who go on 4chan, Something Awful, etc. I don’t particularly see the gender imbalance as a problem, so I was a little surprised the issue had such long legs. (But then, here I’m blogging about it and dragging it on even longer…)
Comment by Adam Lindsay - May 5, 2008 @ 11:11 am
Sarah, it’s an interesting list (especially as I generally stay away from the center of theYouTube-verse), and I think who you’re pointing to are far less meme-creators, and far more personalities in their own right, which was one of the first points raised in response to the initial gender/racial imbalance question at the first ROFLCon panel. Is personal fame a greater achievement than birthing an idea? Is being an online video personality closer to traditional celebrity than accidental micro-celebrity (wherethehellismatt, TRON Guy)?
I dunno. As I said, I’ve been struggling with it myself. I felt that the invitees and panels at ROFLCon belonged there, together, and it made sense at the time.
Comment by Eszter Hargittai - May 5, 2008 @ 11:55 am
Research I have done with Gina Walejko shows that women are much less likely to post content online than men, which could itself account for differences in resulting fame. Why we see this trend is a different question to which, as of yet, I don’t think anyone has solid answers based on rigorous evidence. I’m doing some related work right now with the hopes of finding some answers to such questions.
Comment by kurquoise - May 6, 2008 @ 12:13 pm
To respond to the first post by Anonymous – believe it or not, white males actually make up the minority of the ROFLCon team!
Adam, you’re entirely correct in saying that the people I named are closer to Internet personalities rather than meme-creators. And I also agree with you that everyone at ROFLCon felt like they belonged (though maybe some panelists were closer to Internet personalities than one-time meme makers.) I think all Internet fame needs the viral component, but there is a difference between those who want to attract an audience and those who stumble upon fame entirely accidentally.
Eszter, we’d love to hear about your research and whatever insights you have on this gender imparity! I wonder how much of it is a reflection of the Internet and how much it is a function of gender differences that already exist in our analog lives.