Geographies of Trolls, Grief Tourists, and Playing with Digital Transgression

Abstract

The digital geographies of young people, have become increasingly important to our understanding of how modern youth navigate adolescence. In this chapter, we consider the online presence of young people. The piece pursues two lines of analysis: the first of these moves from behaviors that are deemed socially acceptable, through the "marginal" and "questionable" into the undesirable, from misbehavior to the plainly unacceptable. A second parallel line traces activities that young people first see as of interest and curiosity, then as a movement from "play" into mischief, from nonconformity and irreverence to transgression and rebellion, and from there to bullying and maltreatment. We argue that through such behaviours, young people create for themselves geographies through which adult norms are norms and values are rejected and new forms of expression of order are established.