McPherson

This piece seemed a little odd in that at times it didn’t feel direct. Terminology was used that didn’t make the piece more difficult but sometimes more vague if one is not set on the idea of white males beings the primary focus for these terms. The vagueness of the article also showed through, for me, because of the difficulty in finding a concrete thesis. The closest I could come to was, “wondering how these neorebel sites might be reconciled with much of the new media theory I was reading.” The reason this felt vague to me was because of where it was positioned after a long explanation about how she googled her name.

At first I felt like she was trying to explain that the cybercommunities provided individuals the ability to express one of their alter online personalities. That some who might visit the site aren’t truly racist but are expressing a small portion of their whole. She begins this on page 4 of the article talking about Turkle’s work where she explains that online use eventually results in multiple selves that can be any gender, age, race, ect… These explanations about the virtual world are important because without them the reader would probably not be able to realize that those who visit these sites are not all overtly racist.

She goes on to explain that those who visit these sites are concerned about “Southern Heritage” and thus their racism becomes covert, mind you it is still racism. To me it seemed this subtle racist information allows viewers to glorify their past and the dream they posses. When McPherson talks about the graphs and stories she’s come across she helps readers realize that this is THEIR fantasy and in few ways can it exist. The issue though is that it exists and is protected/encouraged by online communities.