Fight for Your Platform to Party: Brooklyn Drag and the Battle for a Queerer Facebook

The final field study describes Brooklyn’s contemporary drag community and their use of social media. Digital technologies provide important tools for individual self-promotion, as well as establishing a collective archive of queer identity. In particular, I consider tensions between drag queens and Facebook’s real name policy, and the ways that the platform inscribes mainstream understandings of identity.

The Death and Life of Great Online Subcultures: An Analysis of Body Modification Ezine

The first field study in this book describes BME, an online platform for people interested in body modification. I describe the community’s attempts to manage membership by analysing changes to the Terms of Service. I also describe threats to BME’s community in terms of the increasing popularity of body modification as a cultural practice.

Introduction

This chapter introduces key definitions of community, appropriation and alterity. I outline a methodological approach, networked case studies, as well as the book’s remaining chapters.

Frameworks for Technology and Communities of Alterity

This chapter provides the theoretical architecture for the remaining chapters. I start by outlining dominant narratives surrounding the internet as a way of setting up the countercultural narratives to follow. I describe the three-part framework anchoring this book: flexibility, legibility and authenticity.

Countercultural Values for Theory and in Design

The final chapter addresses implications of field studies for theory and social media design. I discuss the importance of feeling a shared sense of space for online communities, which may be eroded by an emphasis on mobile devices and continual upgrades. I also describe a series of characteristics for developing platforms better equipped to support countercultural communities.

They Came from the Basement: Tactics of Secrecy in New Brunswick’s Underground Punk Community

The punk music scene in New Brunswick is literally underground, taking place in a network of residential basements. Because these shows are quasi-legal, the community has developed a set of practices for keeping their shows secret. In this chapter, I focus on the flexible practices that have developed in order to maintain a vibrant music scene.