In Lulz We Trust

Adam Church
Project Proposal

I am studying Internet subcultures, paying specific attention to thread and forum activity because of growing tendencies toward the subversive & anti-cultural, and I hope to illustrate/expose their role as a super-contextual vigilante.

I am focusing on a handful of websites, namely encyclopediadramatica.com but also ytmnd.com and 4chan.org and youtube, though ED appears chief among them. So far, I have found parallels to Bakunin’s theoretical anarchist organizational principles, and to the aesthetic models of the Situationists and (cinematic) Formalists. ED functions as a post-ironic social body/organism evidencing distinct egoistic behaviors, yet features anonymous participation only. It recollects mentalities and structures from Hobbe’s dark leviathan to Debord’s Society of the Spectacle. I am also examining these internet phenomenon in terms of the disintegration of the individual and group think. More than likely I will indulge a fair amount of psychoanalysis and anthropological/sociological criticism.


So far I am considering two forms of expression for this research, either some degree of creative Sci-Fi project or a flat out essay. Honestly, it’d be much easier for me to just create some kind of critical expository piece in a digital medium. Noting that, my working title is either Cultural Cannibalism or Anti-culturalism, with the subheading of “In Lulz We Trust” (taken directly from ED’s motto).

Obviously, my main hurdle is narrowing this down into a manageable project. I have many questions, but I have yet to determine the best specific line of enquiry.