The Role of Humor in Understanding the Trolling Behavior of Social Media Users in Pakistan

Abstract

This study explores the use of humor in Pakistan as an emerging strategy of creative resistance to patriarchal oppression and rising authorities in the region and to develop a nuanced understanding of its reception by citizens on the social media handles. By examining instances from the protests of Aurat March through qualitative content analysis techniques and by drawing on literature on humor and protest as well as on the social media engagement, the paper attempts to describe the ways in which humor is implicated in formation and subversion of political subjectivities among urban women in the country. In this context, humor is not to be understood as a non-consequential ornamental element of protest spectatorship; rather, it provides a tool of localization of feminist movement through de-escalation and affect redirection in a public space hostile to women’s voices and public protests in general. However, the findings suggest caution in romanticizing humor as it can also serve to hijack the movement by deflecting attention away from the focal cause of economic, social and sexual justice for women and minorities in the country as well as lead to a negative cultural framing of the protesters and their movement.