The climate of climate change: Impoliteness as a hallmark of homophily in YouTube comment threads on Greta Thunberg's environmental activism
Marta Andersson
Abstract
This paper investigates impoliteness and value homophily (‘thinking alike’) in the context of YouTube-based ideological discussions beneath the videos critical towards the Swedish environmental activist – Greta Thunberg. Drawing on the idea of rapport management, the study finds a remarkable scale of homophily as the postings follow recurrent patterns of face and sociality rights attacks echoing the same point of view. Consequently, while impoliteness has been recognized as widespread in social media for reasons such as anonymity and social detachment, this paper offers an insight into how the phenomenon contributes to the process of consolidation and homogenization of views through social comparison. As the study concludes, impoliteness in ideological discussions on YouTube may serve as the glue to ad hoc social contact between like-minded individuals –ultimately leading to social identification in relevant groups and formation of homophilous online communities.