Welcome to my website! I’m Michelann Quimby, and I’m a writer, public speaker, cyberpsychology researcher, curriculum designer, instructor, and consultant. Here, you’ll find my bio, CV, and resume, as well as information on my curriculum, consulting, and research. This site represents my academic and professional pursuits. Feel free to contact me with questions and comments. Save
Hi! I got my first round of fat trolling on YouTube this week! As a person, it’s a little creepy and depressing. But as an online aggression researcher, it’s kind of awesome! I wasn’t trolling for trolls, I was just drooling over my latest favorite drag queen’s music video. Ginger Minj very nearly became America’s first fat Drag Superstar. She didn’t win the crown, but she’s super popular and released a video wearing a tee with her self-hashtag, #glamourtoad. So awesome. Anyway, I watched the video and posted in the comments that I really wanted one of those shirts. Enter troll. He/She spread the love far and wide, but here was my little bit of the action: The troll was posting under the name…
Over the past few weeks I’ve reflected on the experience about which I wrote in my first blog for my Advanced Human Development course. My professor pointed out that the male aggressor on the YouTube thread used a pseudo-rational/scientific argument to deliver a largely aggressive message. I’ve been turning this over in my head. This aggressive pseudo-rationality is one of the main forms of aggression (and perhaps micro-aggression) I’ve observed on online discussions and forums. What is this phenomenon? Why do we use it? What purpose does it serve? Several different ideas have surfaced for me. Pseudo-Rationalism is a Thing On a whim, I looked up pseudo-rationalism and found out it was a thing. A German philosopher named Otto Neurath presented a paper in…
I’m starting to get my act together around my dissertation, which is on how people express aggression online, and how the online environment facilitates reinforcement or change of social norms. While I have a very specific sample in mind, I recently stumbled on another idea through getting caught up in a YouTube flame-war. A few days ago I watched this video on YouTube of Mary Lambert, a gay and body acceptance activist and pop artist/spoken word poet. It’s a really raw, powerful statement about the dual forces of self-love and internalized hate. I was moved, but then I read this comment: I saw red, and in retaliation openly engaged in the kind of aggression that I usually avoid or observe at a distance: Mr.…
So here I am again, trying to get my thoughts organized before I have to make them sound important and scholarly and factual-ish. I’ve read oh-so-many academic articles on “cyberbullying” over the last two years, and especially over the last two months. I’ve read countless more journalistic stories about it. The words “bully” and “troll” can mean anything from someone who posts violent threats, revenge porn and engages in swatting to someone who says something snarky about a band you like. This is problematic for a whole bunch of reasons. There’s a psychodynamic model for bullying that goes like this: Person A has a proclivity to avoid negative feelings about him or herself. This is a pattern usually formed in childhood. Maybe A’s mom…
Michelann Quimby