Clear and Omnipresent Danger: Digital Age Culture Wars and Reactions to Drag Queen Story Hour across Diverse Subreddit Communities

Abstract

The culture wars, or battle between American conservatives and progressives to define national values, appeared to be in abeyance until they were seemingly reignited by Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” rally cry. Yet, contemporary culture wars are different from those of previous decades because, instead of being driven by political and intellectual elites, they are often fought by populist voices on social media platforms. Additionally, whereas culture wars have traditionally been understood as reactionary to changes in local communities, social media may redefine community such that threats emerging in one geographic area reverberate across the country. In this study, we analyze 1658 comments posted to four ideologically divergent Reddit communities in response to Drag Queen Story Hour, which entails drag performers reading books to children in libraries. Our analysis demonstrates ways that different communities grapple with cultural threat, with those who have historically influenced American values exhibiting fear over the power they stand to lose. Additionally, in our analysis, members of online communities responded to threats that materialized in geographic communities to which they did not necessarily have a tangible connection. Thus, the diffuse nature of digital age culture wars may render distinctions between abstract and tangible threats obsolete.