ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on representations of outsider and details the complex, often romanticized and self-styled concept sociologically, culturally, aesthetically and politically. The construct of outsider is detailed in order to appreciate marginalization and the extent of exclusion through humour and art amongst other conceptualizations. The excluded ‘other’ is shaped by powerlessness reinforced through superior notions of reactionary humour, anomie and alienation driven by lack of cultural capital. The notion of outsiderdom concerns ‘living an extreme alternative lifestyle with an inability or refusal to conform’, in contrast to the networked insider. It is representational with some empirical basis, and the label offers resistance as a romantic reaction to social norms, driven to various degrees by particular ideas and ethical codes. Politics has been reshaped by the manipulation of media images, as embodied by populist politicians such as US President Donald Trump and his mantra of ‘fake news’.
