A Woman’s Place Is in the (Greasepaint) White House: How the 2016 Presidential Election Sparked a Creepy Clown Craze

Гордон,

doi:10.5406/jamerfolk.134.531.0025

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 24 publications

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“…Urban legends, such as the Kentucky Fried Rat (see Fine, 1980), more isolated incidents such as a clown scare in 2016 (Gordon, 2021), and even more widespread media scares such as the satanic panics of the 1980s (DeYoung, 1998; Richardson et al, 1993; Victor, 1993) have all utilized the constructionist perspective to unpack the underlying social mechanisms that lead to their etiology and appeal within contemporary society. Constructionists typically draw upon the work of Stanley Cohen (1972) to understand these phenomena, pointing to the role of the mass media in galvanizing our emotions and mobilizing individuals to put pressure on those in positions of power to ‘do something’ about the issue.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Perfect Storm: A Subcultural Analysis of the QAnon Movement

Conner

MacMurray

2021

Critical Sociology

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In this study, we examine the social phenomenon known as ‘QAnon’. While QAnon is typically thought of as an exclusively online cultural phenomenon, and thus easily dismissed, it has played a significant role in promoting physical acts of violence—including multiple murders and the attack on the United States Capital on 6 January 2021. Utilizing a qualitative analysis of 300 hours of QAnon-related content, we argue that the widespread beliefs held by QAnon supporters were only possible due to the confluence of feelings of distrust in government and other public officials, purveyors of QAnon that profited in the movement’s success, and a populist digital media environment in which extremist ideas are housed and promoted. We conclude by asking if this is a phenomenon created by greater connectivity, or if this is a byproduct of late-stage capitalism in which social relations continue to be atomized.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Perfect Storm: A Subcultural Analysis of the QAnon Movement

Conner

MacMurray

2021

Critical Sociology

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The Proverbs of a Pandemic: The Early Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic Viewed through the Lens of Google Trends

Haas¹

2022

Journal of American Folklore

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This article explores the possibility that Google search behavior (as summarized in Google Trends output) may provide an informative lens through which researchers can view shifts in proverb search interest, and a way to see how those shifts relate to particular sociohistorical events. In the application presented here, analyses showed that just as internet searches for terms like “Wuhan,” “coronavirus,” “pandemic,” and “flatten the curve” surged in popularity in the United States in early 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, so, too, did searches for particular phrases (e.g., “keep calm and carry on,” “this too shall pass,” and “all in this together”) that seemed to provide useful proverbial framings for the events of this time. This analysis, then, offers an overview of the pandemic from a paremiological perspective and further illustrates the potential value of quantitative methods in folklore scholarship.

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A Woman’s Place Is in the (Greasepaint) White House: How the 2016 Presidential Election Sparked a Creepy Clown Craze

Cited by 2 publications

References 24 publications

The Perfect Storm: A Subcultural Analysis of the QAnon Movement

The Perfect Storm: A Subcultural Analysis of the QAnon Movement

The Proverbs of a Pandemic: The Early Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic Viewed through the Lens of Google Trends

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