ABSTRACT
While modern society has long been media-saturated, it is now completely immersed in the endless debates within social media – here positioned as ‘asocial media’, following McLuhan’s work, as the ‘social media’ preclude genuine presence or participation. This chapter is based on extensive digital auto-ethnography, particularly of feminist and anti-feminist critiques within social media platforms. Initially, the analysis parses the emergent vocabulary and terminology of online critique, from call-outs and micro-aggressions to political correctness and snowflakes, as an adaptation of critique to ongoing debates. Thereafter, the chapter examines the adoption and re-tooling of feminist critique by anti-feminists, wherein ‘patriarchy’ and ‘feminism’ become rendered as equivalents. Specific use of satire and parody as critical humour, on either side of this divide, is also analysed in depth. Finally, focusing mainly on feminist sites, the transformation of everyday life conduct through constant critical scrutiny is examined. Again, this is a snapshot and interpretation of critique, but shows how critique proliferates and metamorphises through social media.
