Written by an expert in media, popular culture, gender, and sexuality, this book surveys the common archetypes of Internet users-from geeks, nerds, and gamers to hackers, scammers, and predators-and assesses what these stereotypes reveal about our culture's attitudes regarding gender, technology, intimacy, and identity.
• Provides exhaustively researched and richly detailed information about the interplay between media representations of Internet users and gender, politics, technology, and society that is fascinating and fun to read
• Presents findings that suggest that in spite of the Internet being so prevalent, technophobia is still an inherent subtext of many pop culture references to it
• Considers how the vast majority of the portrayals of Internet user stereotypes are male-and evaluates how these male-dominated roles shape and are shaped by popular attitudes about sexuality, technology, intimacy, and identity
• Written by Lauren Rosewarne, a widely published expert in the areas of modern media, popular culture, gender, and sexuality/The Internet has enabled an exponentially larger number of people-individuals who are members of numerous and vastly different subgroups-to be exposed to one other. As a result, instead of the simple "jocks versus geeks" paradigm of previous eras, our society now has more detailed stereotypes of the undesirable, the under-the-radar, and the ostracized: cyberpervs, neckbeards, goths, tech nerds, and anyone with a non-heterosexual identity. Each chapter of this book explores a different stereotype of the Internet user, with key themes-such as gender, technophobia, and sexuality-explored with regard to that specific characterization of online users.
Author Lauren Rosewarne, PhD, supplies a highly interdisciplinary perspective that draws on research and theories from a range of fields-psychology, sociology, and communications studies as well as feminist theory, film theory, political science, and philosophy-to analyze what these stereotypes mean in the context of broader social and cultural issues. From cyberbullies to chronically masturbating porn addicts to desperate online-daters, readers will see the paradox in popular culture's message: that while Internet use is universal, actual Internet users are somehow subpar-less desirable, less cool, less friendly-than everybody else.