Extremely Online

To be Extremely Online (typically used in proper adjective form)[2] means that a person or subject is closely engaged with Internet culture.[2] People who are Extremely Online often believe that posts online are very important.[3][4] Events and phenomena can themselves be Extremely Online;[3] while often used as a descriptive term, the phenomenon of Extreme Onlineness has been described as "both a reformation of the delivery of ideas — shared through words and videos and memes and GIFs and copypasta — and the ideas themselves".[4] It has been said that "'online' can be thought of as a way of doing things, not the place they are done".[3]

 wint Twitter
@dril

who the fuck is scraeming 'LOG OFF' at my house. show yourself, coward. i will never log off

September 15, 2012[1]

While the term was in use as early as 2014, it gained use over the latter half of the 2010s in conjunction with the increasing prevalence and notability of Internet phenomena in all areas of life.[2] Extremely Online people are interested in topics "no normal, healthy person could possibly care about",[2] and have been analogized to "pop culture fandoms, just without the pop".[2] Extremely Online phenomena such as fan culture and reaction GIFs have been described as "swallowing democracy" by bloggers such as Amanda Hess in The New York Times;[5] who claimed that a "great convergence between politics and culture, values and aesthetics, citizenship and commercialism" had become "a dominant mode of experiencing politics".[5] Vulture, the pop culture section of New York magazine, has a section for articles tagged "Extremely Online".[6]

Background

In the 2010s, many categories and labels came into wide use from media outlets to describe Internet-mediated cultural trends, such as the alt-right, the dirtbag left, and doomerism.[7] These ideological categories are often defined by their close association with online discourse. For example, the term "alt-right" was added to the AP's stylebook in 2016 to describe the "digital presence" of far-right ideologies,[8] the dirtbag left refers to a group of "underemployed and overly online millenials" who "have no time for the pieties of traditional political discourse",[9] and the doomer's "blackpilled despair"[7] combines with spending "too much time on message boards in high school"[7] to produce an eclectic "anti-socialism".[7]

Extreme Onlineness transcends ideological boundaries. For example, right-wing figures like Alex Jones[10] and Laura Loomer[10] have been described as "extremely online", but so have those on the left like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez[11] and Chapo Trap House.[12][13] Extremely Online phenomena can range from acts of offline violence (such as the 2019 Christchurch shootings[14]) to "[going] on NPR to explain the anti-capitalist irony inherent in kids eating Tide Pods".[2]

Donald Trump has been frequently cited as an example of an Extremely Online poster,[4] during both his presidency[15] and 2020 campaign; Vox claimed his approach to re-election veered into being "Too Online",[4] and Reason questioned whether the final presidential debate was "incomprehensible to normies".[16] While individual people are often given the description, being Extremely Online has also been posited as an overall cultural phenomenon, applying to trends like lifestyle movements suffixed with "-wave" and "-core" based heavily on Internet media,[3] as well as an increasing expectation for digital social researchers to have an "online presence" in order to advance in their careers.[17]

People and phenomena

One example of a phenomenon considered to be Extremely Online[2] is the "wife guy" (a guy who posts about his wife);[18] despite being a "stupid online thing"[19] which spent several years as a piece of Internet slang, in 2019 it became the subject of five articles in leading U.S. media outlets.[19] Like many extremely online phrases and phenomena, the "wife guy" has been attributed in part to dril.[20]

dril, a Twitter account whose posts have been widely cited as influential to online culture,[21] has been described as a "joke account that also inadvertently catalogues ... every way to be mad online".[22] Many of dril's coinages have become ubiquitous parts of Internet slang.[21] Throughout the 2010s, posters such as dril inspired commonly used terms like "corncobbing" (referring to someone losing an argument and failing to admit it);[23][24][25] while originally a piece of obscure internet slang used on sites like Twitter, use of the term (and controversy over its misinterpretation) became a subject of reporting from traditional publications, with some noting[26] that keeping up with the rapid turnover of inside jokes, memes and quotes online required daily attention to avoid embarrassment.[26][27]

Twitch has been described as "talk radio for the extremely online".[28] Other examples of people and events cited as Extremely Online include Spencer Dinwiddie[29] and No Nut November.[30] Increasingly, researchers are expected to have more of an online presence, in order to advance in their careers, as networking and portfolios continue to transition to the digital world.[17]

In November 2020, an article in The Washington Post criticized the filter bubble theory of online discourse on the basis that it "overgeneralized" based on a "small subset of extremely online people".[31]

The 2021 storming of the United States Capitol was described as Extremely Online, with "pro-Trump internet personalities", such as Baked Alaska,[32] and fans livestreaming and taking selfies.[33][34]

Chrissy Teigen has been described as Extremely Online.[35] Jon Ossoff is described as the "first Extremely Online senator",[36] and Andrew Yang was said to run an Extremely Online campaign.[37]

See also

References
  1. wint [@dril] (September 15, 2012). "who the fuck is scraeming 'LOG OFF' at my house. show yourself, coward. i will never log off" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  2. Hathaway, Jay (August 20, 2020). "What does it mean to be Extremely Online?". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on November 16, 2020. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
  3. "EXTREMELY ONLINE: The internet is not a place but a genre". Real Life. January 16, 2018. Archived from the original on November 29, 2020. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
  4. Coaston, Jane (October 22, 2020). "Trump's presidential campaign is Too Online". Vox. Vox Media. Archived from the original on November 16, 2020. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
  5. Hess, Amanda (September 11, 2019). "How Fan Culture Is Swallowing Democracy". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 22, 2019. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
  6. "Extremely Online". Vulture. November 13, 2020. Archived from the original on November 3, 2020. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
  7. Read, Max (August 1, 2019). "Is Andrew Yang the Doomer Candidate?". Intelligencer. Archived from the original on August 1, 2019. Retrieved December 3, 2020.
  8. Montgomery, Sarah Jasmine (16 August 2017). "Associated Press just laid down the law on why 'alt-right' is a bad term". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on 13 June 2020. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
  9. Koshy, Yohann (June 3, 2019). "'The Voice of the Dirtbag Left': socialist US comics Chapo Trap House". The Guardian. Archived from the original on November 25, 2020. Retrieved December 3, 2020. the Dirtbag Left, a coterie of underemployed and overly online millennials who were radicalised by the Iraq war and the 2008 financial crisis, have no time for the pieties of traditional political discourse, and place cautious hope in the movement to put the socialist senator Bernie Sanders in the White House.
  10. Gramenz, Jack (November 16, 2020). "Conservatives flee to Parler after Facebook's US election crackdown". news.com.au. Archived from the original on November 16, 2020. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
  11. Walsh, Meghan. "Invasion of the Extremely Online". Korn Ferry. Archived from the original on December 6, 2020. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
  12. Conway, Louie (September 10, 2018). "Chapo Trap House: Socialism for the Extremely Online". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on November 9, 2020. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
  13. Jones, Sarah (Fall 2018). "The Dirtbag Manifesto". Dissent. Project MUSE. 65 (4): 11–15. doi:10.1353/dss.2018.0069.
  14. Sixsmith, Ben (March 15, 2019). "The dark extremism of the 'extremely online'". The Spectator. Archived from the original on August 19, 2020. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
  15. Rivero, Nicolás (November 12, 2020). "Trump is about to lose his special privileges on Twitter". Quartz. Archived from the original on November 16, 2020. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
  16. Brown, Elizabeth Nolan (October 23, 2020). "Was the Final Presidential Debate Incomprehensible to Normies?". Reason. Archived from the original on November 5, 2020. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
  17. Abidin, Crystal (2019). "Tacit Labours of Digital Social Research as an Early Career Researcher". Journal of Digital Social Research. 1 (1): 31–34. doi:10.33621/jdsr.v1i1.10.
  18. Hess, Amanda (5 June 2019). "The Age of the Internet 'Wife Guy'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 10 June 2019. Retrieved 11 June 2019.
  19. Schwedel, Heather (10 June 2019). "What Is the "Wife Guy"? At Least Five New Articles Have Answers for You!". Slate Magazine. Archived from the original on 11 June 2019. Retrieved 11 June 2019. You're telling me a stupid online thing can reflect "a deeply ambivalent state of heterosexual coupling" (the New York Times) or that "commitment [is] barely necessary at this point in the Western history of sexual romance" (Mel)? That's every culture writer's dream.
  20. Whyman, Tom (14 May 2019). "Anatomy of the Wife Guy". The Outline. Archived from the original on 11 June 2019. Retrieved 11 June 2019.
  21. Dunigan, Maeve (November 29, 2017). "The disappearing anonymity of Wint (@dril)". The Diamondback. Archived from the original on November 29, 2017. Retrieved November 29, 2017.
  22. Jackson, Gita (June 9, 2017). "How to Use Twitter in 2017, Maybe". Kotaku. Archived from the original on August 19, 2017. Retrieved September 14, 2017.
  23. Singal, Jesse (August 3, 2017). "Why Is Everyone on Twitter Suddenly Talking About Corncobs?". New York. Archived from the original on September 11, 2017. Retrieved August 24, 2017.
  24. Tait, Amelia (September 4, 2017). "The internet dictionary: what does it mean to be corncobbed?". New Statesman. Archived from the original on September 7, 2017. Retrieved September 6, 2017.
  25. Knibbs, Kate (August 28, 2017). "Welcome to Corn Cob Season". The Ringer. Archived from the original on September 1, 2017. Retrieved August 29, 2017.
  26. Kelly, Tiffany (August 3, 2017). "How a Kamala Harris meme turned into a fight over corncobs". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on August 26, 2017. Retrieved August 24, 2017. To navigate Twitter in 2017, you need to keep up with many inside jokes, memes, and quotes that change on a daily basis. It's easy to become confused about why something is trending. But doing research before tweeting about it usually pays off. Otherwise, you're setting yourself up for a roast. ... The lesson here is clear. Always check for @dril references before you send that tweet.
  27. Peyser, Eve (August 22, 2017). "Corncob? Donut? Binch? A Guide to Weird Leftist Internet Slang". Vice. Vice Media. Archived from the original on June 26, 2018. Retrieved August 24, 2017.
  28. Corrall, Cody (November 18, 2020). "The Museum of Home Video Is One of Twitch's Best-Kept, Weirdo Pop-Culture Secrets". Thrillist. Archived from the original on November 27, 2020. Retrieved December 3, 2020.
  29. Douglas, Steven (November 18, 2020). "The Rockets Can't Just Give In to James Harden". The Big Lead. Archived from the original on November 29, 2020. Retrieved December 3, 2020. Dinwiddie is a very good player and I'm not just saying that because he's extremely online and might read this.
  30. Adams, David (November 18, 2020). "Why It's Time For The Anti-Wanking Challenge 'No Nut November' To Jack Off Forever". Pedestrian.tv. Archived from the original on November 18, 2020. Retrieved December 3, 2020.
  31. Nyhan, Brendan (November 6, 2020). "Five myths about misinformation". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 9, 2020. Retrieved November 16, 2020. The bubble theory overgeneralizes from a small subset of extremely online people who have skewed information diets and consume a tremendous amount of news. One study finds, for example, that approximately 25 percent of all online political news traffic from Republicans comes from the 8 percent of people with the most conservative news diets.
  32. Romano, Aja (January 17, 2021). "Baked Alaska's clout-chasing spiral into white supremacy is an internet morality tale". Vox.
  33. https://www.weny.com/story/43149645/cnns-elle-reeve-donald-trump-plus-the-internet-brings-extremism-to-the-masses
  34. Penzenstadler, Nick. "Internet detectives swarmed the effort to ID Capitol riot mob, with mixed results". USA Today.
  35. "Chrissy Teigen Accidentally Blew The John Legend Inauguration Surprise". www.yahoo.com.
  36. Robertson, Derek. "An Annotated Guide to Jon Ossoff's Extremely Online Twitter Feed". Politico.
  37. Freedlander, David (January 21, 2021). "'It's Everyone Against Andrew Yang'". Intelligencer.
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