ABSTRACT
Digital writing on social media has the potential to both resist and reproduce the hegemonic beliefs and norms that undergird intersecting structures of power. In this chapter, we discuss enactments of resistance to intersecting oppressions, along with the tensions that arise in these activities, within the digital context of LGBTQ+ YouTube. Specifically, we examine how digital composers in LGBTQ+ reaction videos mobilized discursive repertoires of satirical humor to challenge and discuss hegemonic ideologies. Studying how people contest intersecting oppressions on social media can inform critical media pedagogies and other literacy approaches that focus on understanding and disrupting the structures of power seen in media forms and technologies. Ubiquitous on social media, humor can be a critical, creative force for subverting power and gesturing to other ways of constructing meaning and identity in the world. Yet, important tensions arise in spaces of everyday interaction, from trolls who perpetuate hate to critical commenters who flatten or equate structures of power. Educators and scholars must create room for tensions and setbacks in activities of writing resistance.
