Exploring feminist social media tactics that use humor and laughter as a form of resistance to misogyny, rewiring feelings of shame into shamelessness.

Online sexism, hate, and harassment aim to silence women through shaming and fear. In Who's Laughing Now? Jenny Sundén and Susanna Paasonen examine a somewhat counterintuitive form of resistance: humor. Sundén and Paasonen argue that feminist social media tactics that use humor, laughter, and a sense of the absurd to answer name-calling, offensive language, and unsolicited dick pics can reroute and rewire shame into a self-assured shamelessness.

Jenny Sundén is Professor of Gender Studies at Södertörn University in Sweden. Susanna Paasonen is Professor of Media Studies at the University of Turku in Finland. She is the coauthor of NSF: Sex, Humor, and Risk in Social Media (MIT Press).

1. Introduction: What's laughter got to do with it?
2. #MeToo, outrage, and sexual shame
3. Affective homophily and the unlikely comedy of #MeToo
4. Counter shame, startle, and the unsolicited pussy pic
5. Shameless hags, tolerance whores, and the vibrancy of language
6. Manels, dadpreneurs, and the allure of binary gender
7. Conclusion: Laughter and networked absurdism
References
Index