Master's Thesis Anonymous and Pseudonymous

University of Amsterdam Graduate School of Communication: Corporate Communication Science

Master’s Thesis

Anonymous and Pseudonymous Brand-Related

Communications on Social Media: The Effects on Toxicity,

Transparency and Self-Disclosure

Zygimantas Valiulis (12268895) Supervisor: Dr. S.C. (Suzanne) de Bakker Date of Submission: 28/06/2019

Abstract

Online Disinhibition theory suggest that computer-mediated communications (CMC) allow users to be more toxic and self-disclosing. However, a huge number of overall online communications are made by anonymous and pseudonymous users, which can have an even bigger effect on users’ online disinhibition. The current research applied grounded theory approach and qualitative content analysis to conduct an in-depth examination of how varying levels of user' identification (anonymous, pseudonymous & identified) might be influencing their CMC patterns in relation to toxicity and self-disclosure. The samples are drawn from

Youtube.com, Facebook.com and 4Chan.org comments on the controversial advertisement video from Gillette called "The Best Man Can Be". During the analysis, we observed a pattern, where users became more toxic in their communications when the levels of their identification were lower. Moreover, former literature suggests that CMC and social anonymity should increase users' self-disclosure. However, the current research could only partially support such a notion. Instead, we observed that users with a low level of identification (e.g. anonymous) were more transparent in their controversial and toxic attitudes and opinions during brand-related communications, rather than being generally more self- disclosing. This led us to suggest an expanded and updated definition of CMC self-disclosure and user transparency. Whereas self-disclosure focuses on user revelation of private information, such as family status, age, occupation and etc., the user transparency describes revealing deep-seated attitudes, opinions, feelings, and beliefs, that can often be perceived as controversial, toxic or sensitive.

Table of Contents Introduction 4 Research Question 6 Academic Relevance 7 Practical Relevance 8 Theoretical Framework 9 Toxicity of Anonymous CMC: Interpersonal Distance and Disinhibition Effect 10 Self-Disclosure of Anonymous CMC: Hyperpersonal Interactions 14 Methodology 16 Sample 16 Operationalization 20 Codebook 24 Results 26 Toxicity 26 Self-disclosure 30 Discussion 32 Redefining the Self-Disclosure and Transparency 33 Identified Users CMC 36 Anonymous Users CMC 37 Pseudonymous Users CMC 38 Conclusions 39 Study Limitation 41 Future Recommendations 43 Sources 44 Appendix A 49 Appendix B: Memos 70

Introduction

The ongoing digital world has given many people a mouth without a face – the unique ability to anonymously or pseudonymously express their opinions and participate in various online discussions. To put the scale of online user identification in the broader context of social media: around ¼ of Twitters' 326 million monthly users are pseudonymous, meaning that their real identities are unknown. They represent that approximately 89 million people on Twitter are possibly exhibiting altered communications patterns, both positive and negative, that anonymity and pseudonymity might afford them. Moreover, 86% of internet users reported taking steps to hide their identities online (Rainie et al., 2013). This might have significant ramifications for the overall characteristics and climate of social media sites (SMS) environments, computer-mediated communication (CMC) and electronic word-of-mouth

(eWOM) circulation (Reichelt, Sievert & Jacob, 2014).

While the term anonymity stems from the Greek word anonymia, which literally means “without a name”, many Web 2.0 consumers adopt certain pseudonyms, called nicknames or usernames, to protect their real identity. Some social media platforms, such as

Facebook.com, encourages people to profile their real names, most likely to increase user accountability for their communicative actions (Van der Nagel & Frith, 2015). However, people still choose to hide their real identities. Other SM platforms such as 4Chan.org encourage anonymous user contributions. Meanwhile, most of the Youtube.com users engage in CMC under pseudonymous identities. In the past, YouTube has unsuccessfully encouraged users to adopt real names to increase accountability for toxic comments (Tate, 2012).

But why do people want to be unidentified while engaging in CMC? Kang, Brown and

Kiesler’s (2013) research shows that users adopt anonymous (or pseudonymous) identities for various reasons, including engaging in illegal activities and expressing hate speech or other unpopular opinions. Apart from legally/morally dubious reasons, anonymity affordances are valuable to users in some cases, as they allow them to be open in socially delicate or even shunned discussions, such as pornography, drugs, islamophobia, homosexuality, etc. (Leavitt,

2015; Peddinti, Ross & Cappos, 2017; Van der Nagel & Frith 2015). However, the normative and ethical aspects of online anonymity are still debated (Bodle, 2014; Turculet, 2014).

Positive socio-psychological facets of anonymity and computer-mediated communication (CMC) have been a topic of interest for a number of decades now (Kiesler et al., 1984) (Walther, 1996). From a social psychology and communication science perspective, anonymity changes the way people form their identities online and express themselves on the web. Some studies do affirm that anonymous (or pseudonymous) online communication seems to be bringing both functional advantages and disadvantages to the people involved.

Anonymous CMC can be either positive and socially acceptable or negative and socially undesirable effects on online communication when compared to real-life or identified interactions (Lapidot-Lefler & Barak, 2012; Walther, 1996). Anonymous CMC seems to allow the amplification of one's social behavior or levels of self-disclosure and engagement.

Such positive elements of anonymous CMC usage allow, in some cases, higher levels of self- disclosure (Kiesler et al., 1984; Suler, 2004), lowered social anxiety and desirability (Joinson,

1999) and higher sense of privacy (Bodle, 2014) which leads to more engagement of users in online discussions (Lapidot-Lefler & Barak, 2012). Walther (1996) argued that CMC surpasses face-to-face communication in self-disclosure (Walther, 1996). Other researchers

support such conclusions, having observed that the participants reached higher levels of self- disclosure by using CMC, when compared to real-life conversations (Joinson, 1999, 2001;

Kim & Dindia, 2011). Joinson (2001) found that visual anonymity, mediated by lowered public self-awareness, empowered CMC users to self-disclose about their lives even further.

Meanwhile, the negative and undesirable effects of CMC elevate toxicity, griefing, aggressiveness (Joinson, 1999; Suler, 2004; Van der Nagel & Frith, 2015), lack of accountability, invoked digital incivility (Lefler & Barak, 2014), and accelerated rumoring and dissemination of disinformation, distortion of facts and topics (Cho & Kim, 2012). Such toxic effects hinder online communications, making it unproductive and inhospitable environment for beneficial discussions, which, logically, should also hinder CMC users’ ability to self-disclose.

Research Question

The aim of this study is to examine whether different levels of users’ identification

(anonymous, pseudonymous, and identified) have an effect on users’ self-disclosure and toxicity patterns. The starting point of the research is to analyze negative brand-related communications of identified users, and to compare them with anonymous and pseudonymous users’ CMC. Current study aims to answer whether anonymous, pseudonymous or identified users display most toxic communications or how do they differ in communicating toxicity.

Moreover, which of the groups display highest self-disclosures and if they differ in what type of self-disclosure they communicate? A grounded theory approach is used to examine such trends and come up with new theories regarding toxicity and self-disclosure in brand-related

CMC.

RQ:

1. How do users with varying levels of identification (anonymous, pseudonymous &

identified) communicate their brand-related CMC with regards to toxicity and self-

disclosure?

To better understand the ramifications of varying degrees of identification on user's self- disclosure and toxicity facets, this research will conduct an in-depth qualitative content analysis of users’ comments on Gillette’s new controversial advertisement video “We Believe:

The Best Men Can Be" (Gillette, 2019) with grounded theory approach. More specifically, the samples are drawn from Facebook.com (identified), Youtube.com (pseudonymous) and

4Chan.org (anonymous). The comments are analyzed and compared based on varying levels of online identification. Moreover, the current research is not focusing on the specifics of different social media platforms, but rather concentrates on the anonymity and pseudonymity

CMC affordances it offers the users based on the affordance theory (Gibson, 1974, 2014).

Academic Relevance

Lack of research makes the current study academically relevant. Anonymous and pseudonymous toxicity and self-disclosing communication characteristics have been overlooked in academic research and brand-related communication context. As a result, the current research aims to bring light to the topic and expand the academic knowledge on anonymous and pseudonymous online consumer behaviors using a grounded theory approach.

Nevertheless, many notable studies (Joinson, 1999, 2001; Pedersen, Razmerita & Colleoni,

2014; Qian & Scott, 2007; Tanis & Postmes, 2007) investigated users' CMC behaviors with online anonymity in mind. However, most failed to consider and explore the implications of anonymity and pseudonymity affordances provides to the consumers in brand-related CMC situations (Schivinski & Dabrowski, 2016).

Lastly, there are contradictory conclusions in the literature on anonymity (and pseudonymity) effects on users' CMC with regard to self-disclosure (Joinson, 1999, 2001;

Qian & Scott, 2007; Suler, 2004) and toxicity (Kwak, Blackburn & Han, 2015; Lapidot-Lefler

& Barak, 2012). On the one side, researchers suggest that anonymous users are more engaged and self-disclosing, which increases the productivity of CMC. While other studies suggest that users exhibit are more toxic and bigoted behaviors, which would harm the capacity of the overall communication environment. To sum up, different findings suggest, that anonymity can be both harmful and helpful in CMC. The current study's grounded-theory approach re- analysis and testing of such contrasting conclusions of prior studies prove academically relevant, as it aims to explain such contradictory results and offer updated definitions and theory.

Practical Relevance

As the contemporary role of communication professional shifts from a one-way to two-way communication, it is relevant to understand how the audience communicate on SM platforms which provided anonymous or pseudonymous affordances. Unidentified users are an immense chunk of overall interactions on SMS - approximately ¼ (Peddinti et al., 2017), thus, it can have a significant impact on brands’ eWOM circulation (Reichelt et al., 2014). To add to this,

previous studies (Tend, Khong, Gong & Chong, 2014) have shown, that when compared to traditional marketing, eWOM marketing has a bigger overall impact on the brand image and purchase intent. However, it is unclear what effect does anonymity and pseudonymity have on brand-related communication and eWOM in SMS. Consequently, also not much is known how to manage and consider anonymous and pseudonymous brand-related CMC when creating online marketing strategies. By understanding how anonymous and pseudonymous users differ from fully identified users, PR practitioners might be able to take such knowledge into account. It is practically relevant and useful when creating advertisement campaigns, managing brand image online, trying to boost the right type of brand-related engagement and picking the right SM platforms to focus their communication efforts.

Theoretical Framework

Online identity is not a static concept as internet users have different levels of self-disclosure on their profiles. Peddinti et al. (2014; 2017) provide a simple, yet useful methodology for classifying online social media platform user profiles based on their level of identification.

Users can be:

1) Fully anonymous – first and last names are absent, no personal user profile picture is used. no pseudonymous profile names. SM platform, such as 4Chan.org consists of anonymous user' CMC.

2) Pseudonymous (Partially anonymous) – Nicknames used, first or last altered names can be present, but not both at the same time, profile pictures are usually not personal if used.

Youtube.com is an example of a SM platform, which supports pseudonymous user contributions.

3) Identifiable – both first and last names are used. The personal profile pictures are used by identified users. Facebook.com is a good example of the SM platform, which mainly consists of identified users.

In the sections below, we identify a few major theories, that could explain the contradictory (positive and negative) effects of pseudonymity and anonymity on user' CMC;

Interpersonal distance (Argyle & Dean, 1965), hyper-personal interactions (Walther, 1996), disinhibition effect (Suler, 2004), and reduced-cues model (Sproull & Kiesler, 1986) theories can describe different anonymous CMC characteristics and explain how they adversely bring elevated self-disclosure (positive) and toxicity (negative) pathways in users' communication.

Moreover, we review the literature surrounding these concepts regarding anonymous, pseudonymous and identified user' CMC.

Toxicity of Anonymous CMC: Interpersonal Distance and Disinhibition

Effect

Researchers and even casual internet users would most likely agree that peoples' communicative behaviors online are more intense and sometimes - even rather toxic when compared with the real-world interactions (Lapidot-Lefler & Barak, 2014; Suler, 2004). CMC paired with anonymity and has also been thought to permit socially undesirable and anti-social aspects of communication, such as aggressiveness, hatefulness (Kiesler et al., 1984) incivility, flaming and other general toxicity (Lapidot-Lefler & Barak, 2015). Because of such detachment from socially acceptable norms of communication, CMC has also been described as less productive and less effective than personal face-to-face communication. The three theories that could explain such toxic behaviors are; Interpersonal Distance (IPD) (Argyle &

Dean, 1965), online disinhibition (Suler, 2004) and (lack of) reputation schemes/stranger on the train effect (Bernstein et al., 2011).

Interpersonal Distance

To begin with, one of the very basic and fundamental features of anonymous and pseudonymous CMC that might be influencing such detachment from socially acceptable manners (toxic) of the communication might be explained by interpersonal distance theory

(IPD) (Argyle & Dean, 1965). It is an important factor when considering any type and form of online communication. In very basic terms, IPD states that the actual physical distance between two or more communicators influence how their communication unfolds. In most cases, communication changes occur due to a lack of nonverbal cues and a lack of physical presence. Therefore, in most text-based CMC scenarios, IPD cancels the ability of two or more communicators to gather any non-verbal cues and feedback on each other (Lefler &

Barak, 2012). Other studies describe this phenomenon as cues-to-identity, whereas rich communication consists of low IPD (Tanis & Postmes, 2007). CMC discussions are usually text-based, which means that people who engage in casual CMC, such as brand-related discussions, are far-away unknowns to each other and are devoid of any real, proximal social interaction and nonverbal (reduced) cues (Rice & Love, 1987). Eye-contact is a very important non-verbal cue in real-life communication, that dictates interpersonal communication and relationship building aspects such as intimacy, identification, and association (Argyle & Dean, 1965) and is completely vacant in text-based CMC. While emojis could potentially enrich text-based CMC as non-verbal cues (Pavalanathan & Eisenstein,

2015), they are still a rare sight on platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Reddit where a lot of text-based discussions take place.

To sum up, CMC cancels verbal cues and increased IPD distances people from each other, alienating them in the process and making it harder for relationship building. In theory,

IPD is one of the reasons why that should be causing elevated toxicity in CMC.

Online Disinhibition

Online disinhibition effect theory can also explain some of the toxic facets of unidentified users' online communication (Suler, 2004). It is also largely grounded and builds upon interpersonal distance theory (IPD) (Argyle & Dean, 1965). The empathy deficit is one of the reasons featured in this theory; it states that people online have less identification with each other due to lack of verbal-cues, and as a result - increased IPD. This causes unempathetic feelings towards other users and may lead to cyberbullying and other toxic behavior (Misoch,

2015). Moreover, in real-world discussions (with proximal IPD), people feel the pressure to respond quickly and avoid awkward moments. However, text-based online discussions are still more asynchronous in most cases, allowing people extended timeframes to respond online without losing face. Responses can take anywhere from minutes to weeks in-between, if not evermore (Suler, 2004). As such, lower synchronicity allows users not having to deal with responses immediately and, based on prior theories of IPD and disinhibition, this continues to distance and dissociate people online and strengthen the disinhibition effect and toxicity that comes with it even further (Suler, 2004). Online disinhibition theory essentially argues that people in CMC scenarios are more likely to disregard and neglect other peoples' emotions and feelings while communicating with them online.

Online Reputation Schemes and Stranger on the Train Effect

Lastly, social and civil norms of communication are probably not as important in anonymous

CMC interactions, because due to anonymity, traditional real-life reputation schemes are made impossible (Bernstein et al., 2011). One of such anonymous CMC affordances is “stranger on the train” effect, which states that users tend to be more open, either positively or negatively, if future communication with somebody is highly unlikely (Misoch, 2015). This makes anonymous CMC inherently “unnatural” and different from real-life communication in fundamental ways. This means that users dismiss any possibility of the repercussions of their actions. As a result, people tend to amplify their interaction intensity, meaning that if they hate a product or service, they might be more likely to uncivilly/toxically or very openly voice their opinion on the matter while fully anonymous.

Moreover, any societal or cultural control of communicative norms are obstructed by anonymous CMC. There is also a complete lack of legal or reputational accountability while being fully anonymous. Such anonymity bulwark, that protects the user from the consequences of their actions paired with extreme IPD and online disinhibition effect, might be a huge issue for civil discourse on the internet. This lack of reputational systems and societal control might allow “out of control” users to be extremely toxic and disregard other users’ or topic subjects’ well-being.

Summary of Toxic CMC

All the negative aspects of anonymous CMC affordances lead us to believe that anonymous users will convey more toxicity and incivility when engaging in brand-related CMC. This might be true due to interpersonal distances, lack of empathy, disinhibition effect and most importantly - lack of accountability and reputational systems. Based on prior research,

Anonymous brand-related CMC users should also be less afraid to use aggressive, socially

undesirable and even hateful language, because they most feel like there is no aftermath or consequences of their actions since their real identity is hidden by anonymity (or pseudonymity). Thus, we predict to observe higher levels of toxicity in a fully anonymous sample, when compared to the identified and pseudonymous sample.

Self-Disclosure of Anonymous CMC: Hyperpersonal Interactions

Prior research concludes, that CMC users are more self-disclosing (Joinson, 2001; Kim &

Dindia, 2011). Similarly, Walther's (1996) CMC hyperpersonal interaction theory suggests, that in some aspects, such as the ability to self-represent, self-disclose and even making new friends, CMC communications can be even more productive than face-to-face interactions.

This is due to the fact, that when compared to real interactions, certain CMC platforms afford users better means of constructing their representative and self-images to the audience.

Walther's theory of hyperpersonal communication, much like online disinhibition effect theory (Suler, 2004), also relies on a lack of nonverbal cues and subject distance to explain how CMC can lead to higher self-disclosure (Kim & Dindia, 2011; Walther 1996, 2007). Due to lack of synchronicity, immediate and consequential-impactful feedback and nonverbal cues, the anonymous sender is able to strategically compose a goal-oriented message in a self- idolizing way leading to heightened self-disclosure and representation (Kim & Dindia, 2011).

Merkle and Richard (2000) speculated that due to anonymity, gender roles play a lesser part in self-disclosure than in face-to-face (or identified) communication since anonymity allowed users to break-free of gender communication constructs. A recent meta-analysis (Kim &

Dindia, 2011) of gender roles and self-disclosure using CMC offers similar conclusions. Much like minimization of gender communication roles in anonymous CMC, Van Ruler (2004) noted, that in an anonymous online environment, different subgroups of people (e.g.: sexual,

racial or religious minorities) have a more equal opportunity and, as a consequence, the tendency to express themselves, as minimization of authority and status effect takes place due to anonymity affordances, interpersonal distance and the notion of lack of consequences/shame that would otherwise follow in real life.

The above-mentioned findings suggest that even minorities and other groups that, arguably, hold less power in the "crowd culture" are more self-disclosed in CMC. Can this also mean, that CMC anonymous affordances, also permit other people, regardless of their gender or other sub-group, to more truthful and honest about themselves and their opinions online?

Since prior research suggests that people tend to be more truthful, critical and even hateful while communicating anonymously online, we believe, that this might have a spillover effect in general online discussions and eWOM communications. Since anonymous people are protected by anonymity mask, they are also not afraid of any punishment or any real-life consequences for their honesty and opinions. Moreover, the same applies to self-disclosure, since the real identity is hidden, the user cannot feel any social shame if he/she expresses and disclose intimate opinion/attitude or belief in the context of brand-related communication.

Joinson (2001) findings already suggest that anonymous CMC results in higher levels of self- disclosure. Therefore, based on hyper-personal interactions theory (Walther, 1996) and the

CMC self-disclosure phenomenon (Joinson, 2001), it is logical to assume, that fully anonymous text-based CMC affords people to be more honest and do not filter their language and opinions as much as fully identified users in eWOM context.

Summary of Self-disclosing CMC

Based on the existing theoretical framework, we predict anonymous users' CMC to be more self-disclosing when compared to identified or pseudonymous brand-related communications.

This is due to the hyperpersonal interaction theory, which states that people are able to self- represent themselves to a higher degree. Moreover, as anonymous CMC is less synchronized, high in IPD and having disinhibition inducing effect, we predict users to be more self- disclosing.

Methodology

Design

Exploratory and inductive, the study and research question call for qualitative research tradition. There is no major theory explaining brand-related anonymous CMC, toxicity, and self-disclosure. Qualitative research methods will allow the researcher to gain more in-depth knowledge on the topic, in order to answer the main research question. In addition, the study has a comparative aspect - the identified user-generated content will be analyzed in qualitative tradition and compared with anonymous (and pseudonymous) user-generated responses in 3 different social media. Atlas.ti software is used to code the sample data.

Sample

The sample data are responses to the controversial advertisement campaign from personal care product company Gillette. The video is called “We Believe: The Best Men Can Be” (Gillette,

2019). Currently, with over 30 million views on YouTube.com, Gillette's “We Believe: The

Best Men Can Be” is one of the most controversial advertising campaigns of 2019. The video has 30 million views and over 426.000 comments, and is the second-most disliked video of

the year on Youtube.com. Because of the advertisements' controversial political undertones, it attracted a lot of heated and highly engaged user CMC discussions. Moreover, politically fueled brand-related CMC can regularly cause passionate and prolonged discussions and even breed toxicity and invite self-disclosure, which makes it a good sample for the current study.

The sample of anonymous users' brand-related CMC is drawn from different social media platforms; the anonymous and pseudonymous users' communications are collected from

4Chan (N=30) (www.4chan.org) discussion board and YouTube (N=33) (www.youtube.com) comments. Meanwhile, identified users’ sample is collected from Facebook (N=70)

(www.facebook.com) comment sections. The 3 platforms have a very different user base when it comes to user profiles and their identification. The majority of Facebook's user base is identified. Meanwhile, YouTube’s user base, judging from the preliminary sample of the comment section, seems to be a mix of partially identified users and a mass of pseudonymous users, whose real identity is still hidden. However, the 4chan user base is entirely and thoroughly anonymous, meaning that unlike in YouTube or Facebook, profile pages on 4Chan do not exist allowing full anonymity affordances to the users. This gradient sample of different levels of (non)identification allows the researcher to draw better comparisons between dependent variables (DV: toxicity and self-disclosure) and independent variable (IV: anonymity).

All things considered, the current sample characteristics are fitting and advantageous for the research, because:

1) YouTube, Facebook, and 4Chan comment sections are usually lacking emojis, thus nonverbal cues that would prohibit online disinhibition effect and hyperpersonal interaction are excluded.

2) Sample of both fully identified and fully anonymous (and pseudonymous) user-generated content.

3) controversial topic is expected to produce more engaging discussions, which would lead to richer data.

4) topic subject is revolving around consumer-goods produced by Procter & Gamble corporation, which fits the research focus on brand-related CMC.

Sample Criteria, Selection, and Limitations

A convenience sampling approach was used to collect users' data. Only comments on the subject of Gillette's "We Believe: The Best Men Can Be” ad campaign met the sample criteria.

Moreover, for the comments to meet the criteria required, they have to be of substance, with clearly stated opinions and understandable point-of-view. Since the research is focused on how anonymity and pseudonymity has a relation with toxic online behavior and self- disclosure, only negative attitude comments towards the Gillette’s campaign will be used for the sample. This is because the study specifically aims to examine the trends of how different levels of online identification can influence toxic patterns and self-disclosure, which requires negative attitude expression.

There are disadvantages in the sample. First of all, there is no way for the researcher to verify, if the fully identified user is actually real, or whether he/she has taken on a fake identity with the account (malicious). However, such a phenomenon, presumably, should occupy only a very small portion of the sample - less than 1% (Boshmaf et al., 2015) and is only applicable to fully identified sample group, thus, should be insignificant in the end.

Lastly, a lot of sample screening is required. For one, since YouTube, Facebook and 4Chan

are international platforms, with the English language as the most commonplace/default languages to interact between different cultures, there are many user comments with very poor, insufficient English language proficiency or people who still choose to use other languages than English. These comments will be excluded from the final sample coding.

Moreover, many users' comments were very short and not suitable for sample.

From the large pool of potential data (46,000 - Facebook.com, 432,905 - Youtube.com and N/A from 4Chan.org) comments were sorted by the newest responses. The main criteria are which include; negative attitudes towards the advertisement, appropriate substance/size.

Sorting by "new" gave the most randomized and neutral results when compared to by "most relevant" or "top-comments", because most relevant/top comments tended to have positive attitudes towards the advertisement - undoubtedly, a consequence of social media algorithms, which prioritize positive valence (Lee, 2018). Many of the observed comments (~3000) did not meet the sample criteria. Thus, only N=133 was selected, which means approximately 1 in

20 comments contained the required negative valance, workable structure, substance, and topic. Moreover, there are also other criteria, which is exclusive to the specific sample groups:

1. The sample criteria for fully identified users on Facebook.com are; First and last name is perceived to be a real name, rather than a username or fictitious pseudonym or character name. Fully identified sample also has to have an apparently real profile picture of themselves in the social media profile.

2. From Youtube.com, we collected the pseudonymous user sample. Collected only if no real name is disclosed as the username. Moreover, real-life face profile pictures might compromise the user’s pseudonymity sense and, as a result, might influence

communication patterns. Therefore, users with pseudonymous usernames and real-life face user-profile pictures will also be excluded from the sample.

3. Meanwhile, fully anonymous users’ sample was collected from 4Chan.org. The platform allows fully anonymous contributions; therefore, all data meets the criteria as long as the users' CMC is on the subject matter and of some sort of substance, that could be analyzed.

Operationalization

Justification for creating initial codes for the qualitative content analysis came from a theoretical framework. Moreover, some of the codes are borrowed from previous studies and literature on similar topics of toxicity (Anderson, Yeo, Brossard, Scheufele & Xenos, 2016) and self-disclosure (Joinson & Paine, 2007). However, during test-round open coding (see appendix B), some of the codes from previous studies were reconceptualized and tailored to match the current research. Some of the codes were formulated by observing the phenomena in the natural setting while open coding the sample and seeing the necessity to include them to answer the research question. Overall, the abstract and wide range of behaviors of users engaging in CMC were categorized into 11 different codes spanning toxicity and self- disclosure of personal information

Toxicity

Based on the theoretical framework, we predict that when compared to fully identified users, fully anonymous people display a higher level of toxicity in brand-related discussions on

social media. This means that the researcher has to study and observe toxic behaviors in content analysis. In the scientific literature, flaming, which is synonymous to toxicity was described as ‘‘hostile and aggressive interactions via text-based CMC" (O'Sullivan &

Flanagin, 2003, p. 69) or, in parallel with incivility, as something opposite to healthy and productive dialogue (Anderson et al., 2016). Prior research has found that the toxic CMC most commonly manifests itself as direct insults and foul language, mockery and ridicule, argument incitement and threats. All of these were created into codes. During the preliminary test with open-coding rounds, two more uncivil and toxic ways of communication were noticed. One of them is a more subtle way of mockery, use of sarcasm or irony. It was quite a noticeable way to express mockery and dissatisfaction, therefore, it was added to the list of codes. Moreover, harder toxicity was also observed to be present in the open test coding - racism and the use of racial slurs. Therefore, the code for racism and other bigotry was included.

Knowing this, we construct the necessary subsequent codes to observe overall toxicity.

The codes are as follows:

1. Foul language - which includes profanity use, not necessarily aimed at other

users or topic subject.

2. Mockery - ridiculing, childlike behaviors and other socially unacceptable ways

of communication.

3. Attacks - malicious insults targeted at other users or topic subject

4. Threat- intimidation targeted at other users or topic subject. Users expressing

the conclusion that he/she will do something to hurt the subject of topic.

5. Distortion - perceived exaggeration of facts or topics, clear bias towards

misinterpretation and misrepresentation of information on the topic.

6. Sarcasm/Irony - use of sarcasm in a mocking remark to express underlying

dissatisfaction towards the subject.

7. Bigotry- racist remarks, racial slurs, offensive/toxic generalization and

prejudice and discrimination against a certain group of people.

Lastly, a code, which marked a civil discourse was created, because, during open coding sessions, there were comments that did express their dislike to the advertisement, however, these users’ messages did not contain any toxicity. This code was necessary to highlight the contrasting trends of toxicity and civil discourse between the different sample groups.

8. Civil Discourse - use of politically correct, socially acceptable ways of

communication to express the dislike to Gillette’s advertisement. User CMC

that uses Civil Discourse usually is void of any toxicity.

Self-Disclosure

We predict that when compared to fully identified users, a fully anonymous user on social media will display higher levels of self-disclosure in brand-related discussions. Considering the sample characteristics, self-disclosure was a particularly hard concept to measure and categorize qualitatively. Nevertheless, simple codes were created to see patterns of higher, lower or non-existent levels of self-disclosure in different sample groups. As Joinson and

Paine (2007) pointed out, not all self-disclosure is equal, meaning that disclosing "... not another dime for Gillette" is not the same (higher) level of disclosure as "I had been using your products since I was 15, I'm 61 now. just threw out what I had of them, and will not be using anything...”. Two overarching codes were constructed to survey real self-disclosure

(major self-disclosure) and self-representation (minor self-disclosure) levels in the content analysis. Moreover, a code was also included to consider and highlight the lack of any self- disclosure in some cases (Self-preservation). From this, we were able to conceive the following codes on different levels of self-disclosure:

1. Minor disclosure - superficial statements, a less intimate/private concession of

self-information that would otherwise be unknown to others (Kim & Dindia,

2011). Prior studies also found the importance of small cues when using CMC

to self-represent (Ellison, Heino & Gibbs, 2006). Small cues can be seen as

minor disclosures for self-representation purposes - hints of personal facts from

real life, but not concrete personal information (Ellison, Heino & Gibbs, 2006).

It can also be subtle cues, with no concrete information about the user.

2. Major disclosure - intimate and personal statements- a higher level of self-

information revelation. It can include intense, profound and concrete private

information. Major disclosures are clearly expressed statements based on users'

real-life facts, that bypass subtle cues. In short, major CMC disclosures confer

more about the users' real-life than minor disclosures.

3. Self-preservation - users involvement in the discussion without any self-

disclosure or self-input. Such a user might still choose to engage and provide

arguments. However, the only self-disclosure that can be visible is the (often

vague) personal stance/opinion of the commentator. Users who self-preserve

do not give out any personal information and past or future purchase intents.

Lastly, minor and major self-disclosure codes do not cover the users’ communications on more abstract aspects, such as emotions, attitudes, feelings, etc.

Codebook

Below is the code table of the qualitative content analysis, with the quotes and labels of sources from the actual sample. Codes from 1-7 are for examining toxicity, meanwhile, codes

8-10 are for self-disclosure:

Table 1. Codebook: toxicity

Toxicity

N Code Example Quote Label o.

“holy shit the gillet ad was fucking gay. fuck those Anonymous Foul 1. cunts…” 4Chan Case Language 5

“HAHAHA the marketing director was too afraid to say Imashaaark 2. Mockery "no" to a feminist VP's ad pitch. So this is the YouTube consequence.”... Case 24

“@ Gillette .., go f yourselves .., you anti male fem libtard David Levy 3. Attack a- holes, is that all the credit you can give towards men Facebook .”... Case 17

“we REALLY need to do is boycott Procter and PAN DA 4. Warning Gamble.”... YouTube Case 31

“This is the best advertisement for growing a beard that ALG Bass 5. Distortion I've ever seen.”... YouTube Case 29

“My wife's boyfriend says this will be the best commercial Guybrush Sarcasm/Iro in 2019’’... Threepwood 6. ny YouTube Case 26

“All of you Africa Americans are responsible for the Anonymous behavior of a few niggers. Stop being niggers". Stop ID:qBeBe7f 7. Bigotry forcing sjw horseshit on the American”... L 4Chan Case 21

‘’What a stigmatizing commercial, so full of political Brynjulf Ei correctness!!! No more Gillette for me because I'm not a Facebook Civil 8. predator, just a normal man that lives a normal life!!’’ Case 44 Discourse

Table 2. Codebook: Self-disclosure

Self-Disclosure

N Explanation and Quote Label Code o.

“Just used my last disposable... not another dime for Sean Brooks Minor 9. gillette”... Facebook disclosure Case 57

“ For my own small business, I pray on hand and knees Michael L. that my marketing department gives me some indication Wells III that they're about to release (...) Facebook I thank you Gillette for demonstrating to me why I should Case 65 keep a tighter leash on my marketing department.”... 10 Major . disclosure

“Next time make sure your advertising company isn't full Anon None Self- 11 of Marxists that hate your customer base.”.. YouTube preservatio . Case n 20

Results

Judging from the coding, we could see clear divergent trends of toxicity and self-disclosure in different sample groups from 4Chan.org (anonymous), YouTube.Com (pseudonymous) and

Facebook.com (identified) (see table 3 for a summary).

Toxicity

Identified User CMC

Uncivil and toxic CMC was observed in all the groups. However, as predicted, most civilly discourse CMC was carried out by fully identified users. Identified users tended to use the least foul language and bigotry. Instead of toxicity, they most notably civilly voiced their strong discontent towards Gillette's new advertisement, mainly by using minor self- disclosures and on future purchase intent - something that could be described - "consumer power":

“Despite using your product for the past 35+ years I'll be trashing my remaining razors and using a product from another company”. - John Killpack, case 1

Pseudonymous User' CMC

YouTube.com pseudonymous users, while being less toxic than anonymous users, were still considerably more uncivil in their discussions when compared to identified users. Mockery sarcasm and distortion of facts and topics were eminent in pseudonymous CMC. One user mockingly and sarcastically wrote:

“Whole my life when my father told me that im a man he was telling me that im a raping toxic human.Thank you for getting me out of the dark Gillette.”

- Kenan, case 6.

Presumably, this pseudonymous CMC includes many toxic elements such as mockery, sarcasm, irony, and distortion of the topic. While no foul language is used, this specific user did not hesitate to use harsh words such as “raping toxic human” in order to mockingly and sarcastically describe how they were depicted in the advertisement and, in turn, voice his discontent towards the Gillette’s advertisement campaign. Such eccentric and borderline toxic behaviors masked by mocking/comedic attempts were commonplace among pseudonymous

CMC.

On a side note, YouTube’s pseudonymous users were observed to be politically motivated more than identified users:

“HAHAHA the marketing director was too afraid to say "no" to a feminist VP's ad pitch. So this is the consequence.”

- Imashaaark, case 24.

“...Gillete has fallen to Feminism…”

- Half-Life-Lore, case 5.

“Next time make sure your advertising company isn't full of Marxists that hate your customer base.”

- Anon none, case 20.

"...we are going to keep telling you where you can shove your "progressiveness"

- E F, case 22.

Attacking underlying ideological messages of the advertisement were more common than disclosing lowered levels of future purchase intent, as seen in fully identified users.

Anonymous User CMC

Lastly, the fully anonymous group was observed to be undoubtedly the most toxic out of the three groups. Civil discourse was a very rare sight amongst anonymous users. Moreover, most of the posts contained hard profanity and even bigotry, such as racism and sexism. Such intolerant toxicity in most cases was noticeably also followed by poor spelling and uncalculated syntax:

“fuck typical faggot response. the gillett add doesnt distinguish between good men and shit cunts, ergo it implys that all men are shit cunts.”...

- Anonymous, case 2.

Moreover, the use of toxic distortion of facts and topics was examined to be far- reaching amongst anonymous users. Some of the users adeptly misrepresented the advertisement and even Gillette's management team' "hidden" motives:

“it's probably just a tumblrette scourge sneaking into the company and subverting it. tumblrette marketing scum: let's make a man-hating ad!”

- Anonymous, case 28.

When compared to identified and pseudonymous users, such as distortion and dissemination of misinformation, and "conspiracy theories", was a noticeable trend in the current sample group of anonymous CMC:

“but lets be absolutely clear about one thing. this gillett ad isnt about making men better. its about riding the wave of anti-male sentiment sweeping across”

- Anonymous, case 2.

One interesting finding is that the use of sarcasm and mockery was considerably less noticeable in anonymous CMC. While identified and pseudonymous users used that to communicate the discontent, the anonymous group tended to use bigotry, foul language, and almost comical distorted CMC to voice their distaste for the Gillette's new campaign.

Overall, the analysis of the three groups of different levels of identification (identified, pseudonymous and anonymous), revealed that the fully anonymous people tended to display the highest level of toxicity in brand-related CMC. While identified and pseudonymous users seemed to use more sarcasm/irony and socially undesirable mockery to unleash their toxicity, anonymous users were overall bigoted, racist and distorted the facts and topics on the subject, meanwhile using foulest language out of all the groups.

Pseudonymous user comments seemed to contain more toxic trends, compared to identified users. They used mockery and foul language considerably more distinctly.

However, identified facebook.com users were more prone to use toxic intimidation, masked as consumerism power, against Gillette’s wellbeing as a company. Threats of boycotts, trashing of the products and foul word-of-mouth dissemination were made quite prominently among identified users.

Anonymous group users display a non-proportional amount of toxicity compared to the two other groups. To conclude, anonymity led to more toxic communication in brand- related CMC. Therefore, our predictions that anonymous people display a higher level of

toxicity in brand-related CMC, when compared with identified users were proven correct based on the current sample.

Self-disclosure

To begin with, the most common use of self-disclosure across different platforms was expressed by disclosing their past, present and future actions and purchase intent. Such CMC self-disclosure was above all, noticeable in the identified sample group. Nevertheless, the overall perceived levels of self-disclosure of private information in the sample were smaller than expected in pseudonymous and anonymous groups. Meanwhile, counter-intuitively, identified facebook.com users tended to communicate minor self-disclosures quite often - most of the people reported their past and future attitudes towards Gillette and disclosed lack of future purchase intent because of the advertisement:

“I will be avoiding all of your products from now on.”.

- Kyle Rook, case 4

Facebook.com user CMC was the only platform where notable major self-disclosure CMC took place:

... I commit not to purchase any Gillette product ever. Tomorrow, Head and Shoulder (my shampoo for the past 20 years..), the day after pampers (I have 1 baby at home and 1 on the way), etc. ...”

- Yann Le Barz, case 29

In such fashion, identified users’ CMC was observed to be more self-centered and self-disclosing with regards to private information, when compared to pseudonymous or

anonymous users. The two latter groups were more prone to self-preserve their personal details and tended to only express their negative attitudes towards the advertisement.

Worth noting, that while in some instances of minor self-disclosure were present in anonymous and pseudonymous groups, however, no major self-disclosures were observed.

The anonymity and even pseudonymity seemed to distance and inhibit the users from inputting their own experiences and other personal information apart from attitudes and opinions into the CMC surrounding Gillette’s advertisement.

The counter-intuitive results led to unpredicted results. Based on the theoretical background on pseudonymous and anonymous CMC, we were expecting to find that anonymity allows more self-disclosure of sensitive-personal information. However, the findings were opposite to that, since the sample of fully identified users tended to minor and major self-disclose considerably more intensively, than pseudonymous and anonymous users in brand-related CMC context.

Table 3. Summary of results

Toxic CMC enactment Self-disclosure

Identified Voice of consumer - threats Strong tendency for minor of boycott, intentions of self-disclosure, warning others not to buy, and bit of major self- never to buy again disclosures. themselves, and intentions of discarding the currently owned products.

Pseudonymous Use of mockery and jokes to Weak tendency for self- put the subject topic under a disclosure. No inclination bad light. To prove a point, towards major disclosures. many sarcastic statements were made.

Anonymous Bigotry, racism and sexism. Non-existent self-disclosure Distortion tactics were used propensity. Most of the on the topic subject to make communication is with the advertisement and Gillette preservation of concrete self- look even worse. information. High transparency in controversial attitudes/opinions and feelings

Discussion

The current study aimed to answer the research question:

- How do users with varying levels of identification (anonymous, pseudonymous &

identified) communicate their brand-related CMC with regards to the use of toxicity

and self-disclosure?

For one, the content analysis results showed that social media users do have different communication patterns based on their level of identification when engaging in brand-related

CMC with regards to toxicity and self-disclosure. The most important findings were that the anonymous sample group tended to communicate more toxicity, meanwhile, the identified group was more self-disclosing and civil. Additionally, we have noticed a trend in the sample, where the more anonymous the platform is, the more uncivil and toxic the negative brand- related user's CMC seems to become. This is evident when comparing the identified group with the anonymous group. Anonymous users were noticeably more bigoted and prone to use socially undesirable ways to voice discontent for Gillette's advertisement. Distortion of facts on the topic, racism, and extremely foul language was commonplace.

Moreover, we propose an expanded definition of self-disclosure with regards to CMC, which would include the new concept of (self-)transparency. Like self-disclosure, transparency is a type of voluntary admission of self-information. However, it is specifically regarding underlying, sensitive attitudes and private beliefs, rather than disclosure of private details and "concrete" information.

Redefining the Self-Disclosure and Transparency of Anonymous and

Pseudonymous User CMC

The findings of various prior studies on CMC self-disclosure and anonymity seem to contradict the findings of the current research. Many studies point out, that anonymous people are more prone to be self-disclosing on their private lives when compared to identified users

(Bodle, 2014; Joinson, 1999, 2001; Kiesler et al., 1986; Suler, 2004; Walther, 1996;). Yet, the current study and prior similar studies (Qian & Scott, 2007) could not fully support such conclusions. Opposite effects on anonymity have been observed in the sample - users who engage in anonymous CMC seemed to preserve their privacy and generally emit any of their

private information from their communications. We conclude that anonymous users are not prone to self-disclose in the current definition of the concept. As a result, this research can only partially agree with the prior research conclusions on the topic, that anonymity allows users to become more self-disclosing in various CMC scenarios. However, redefining the concept of self-disclosure might explain why the findings of previous studies could not be supported in the current research.

Previous CMC and self-disclosure studies, (Joinson 1999, 2001; Qian & Scott, 2007) adopted the definition of self-disclosure vaguely and very broadly. The current definition of self-disclosure describes an event where a person communicates any piece of information otherwise unknown to the receiver, including giving "concrete" private information, attitudes, opinions, feelings and etc. However, in the current research, narrowed down and split the broad definition of self-disclosure. We propose altering and dividing the concept of users willingly sharing information to other people into two interrelated concept definitions: self- disclosure and transparency:

1) CMC transparency describes the instances where users are communicating private

and/or sensitive personal attitudes and opinions without the necessity of sharing

private "concrete" information on their real-life or past, present and future intents in

real-life. CMC transparency can include conferring and being transparent on political,

sexual or any other sensitive attitudes, opinions, and beliefs. The qualitative data

analysis suggests that fully anonymous users can be more transparent, rather than self-

disclosing about their culturally unpopular, sensitive and toxic attitudes, such as

expression of racism, homophobia, and sexism. We speculate that the anonymous

CMC transparency phenomena can also extend to the subjects of sexuality, politics,

religion and other sensitive topics.

2) CMC self-disclosure suggested redefined and extended concept describes the cases

where users are not necessarily transparent on their attitudes, inner beliefs, and

opinions, but rather self-disclose the more "concrete" private information based on

their real-life. These can include non-controversial self-revelations, past, present or

future intentions, their family status, occupations and etc. The current research

concludes that fully identified users tend to self-disclose during brand-related CMC to

a higher degree when compared to anonymous and pseudonymous users.

To illustrate why the distinction between the definitions of anonymous CMC transparency and self-disclosure are needed, we could make a hypothetical example of a person whose unpopular or sensitive opinion is silenced by current culture norms, dominant coalitions or in-groups. Such a person might not be able to be transparent in his/her opinion openly without risking social exclusion (Sidanius & Pratto, 1993). The person might be able to use CMC to self-disclose his concrete and explicit personal details; however, he cannot be fully transparent about his sensitive and private beliefs and attitudes while being identified.

Therefore, his honest and transparent-self, in such a case, can never be expressed by identified

CMC. Proposed theory suggests that distancing/disinhibiting tool, such as anonymous CMC, can help such a person to escape the social dominance and be transparent about his/her personal opinions and attitudes without the risk of reputational loss. Anonymous sample analysis in the current research seemed to point towards the accuracy of such assumptions, that transparency and self-disclosure are two different concepts and definitions used to describe CMC in various CMC scenarios.

To sum up, anonymity did not permit users to be more self-disclosing about their personal information in brand-related CMC, yet it did allow them to be more transparent, or in simple terms - more honest with regards to their dark and most intimate beliefs and attitudes.

In the sample, such a theory is supported by anonymous users' CMC trends, which pointed towards self-revelation of their culturally unpopular, bigoted and other socially unacceptable opinion tellings, which cannot be seen in identified group samples. By redefining the definitions of anonymous and pseudonymous information sharing in CMC (self-disclosure vs. transparency), the current study can also partially support the conclusions of previous studies, which suggested that anonymous CMC users are generally more willing to share private information. However, we still maintain that CMC anonymity does not reinforce anonymous or pseudonymous users to be more self-disclosing by our newly suggested definition.

Identified Users CMC

Contrary to our predictions, it was identified users, and not anonymous users, that displayed the highest leaning towards self-disclosure of private information in the comments regarding

Gillette's new campaign. On the one hand, the result could be explained by the fact, that primarily identified user based social media platforms, such as Facebook, are designed for people to disclose and share their private information with ease. However, a prior study that examined users' self-reported information self-disclosure motivations found that users are motivated to self-disclose, because it helps them maintain relationships/image and increases platform usage gratification (Krasnova, Spiekermann, Koroleva & Hildebrand, 2010), much like reputation systems (Krasnova et al., 2010). Meanwhile, fully anonymous users, by definition, lack such ambition or even ways to do it, even if they wanted to.

Anonymous Users CMC

Based on the results, anonymous users' CMC did not have a higher degree of self-disclosure in the sample. On the contrary, anonymous users tended not to disclose personal information.

Identified users tended to disclose private information to maintain reputation and relationships

(Krasnova et al., 2010). However, maintaining image and relationships is arguably harder with pseudonymous account and probably not possible at all with fully anonymous CMC. Not having reputation to maintain eliminates the need for anonymous users to self-disclose for that purpose, which would explain the lack of self-disclosure of anonymous users in the results.

Moreover, anonymous CMC users did express bigoted and socially/culturally shunned opinions more often than pseudonymous and identified users. Expressing such private and troublesome opinions and attitudes while being fully identified or in real-life can even lead to legal troubles. However, while completely anonymous, users experience a disinhibition effect

(Lapidot-Lefler & Barak, 2012) and they cannot be socially or legally prosecuted for expressing their unpopular opinions. The sample showed that anonymous people were more highly prone to be transparent about their toxic attitudes. This means that anonymous CMC does not afford users to be self-disclosing on their private information (minor or major), but rather enables them to be more transparent about their true beliefs and opinions, no matter how toxic or unpopular. Transparency of this degree, as was observed in the anonymous sample, would never be viable in a fully identified sample, because only anonymity can afford the users' lack of consequences for their actions and reputational systems. Anonymity also enabled the disinhibition effect and boosted IPD between other users and the Gillette company. All these factors contributed to anonymous user transparency, which translated itself into toxic sexism, bigotry, mockery, and other flaming CMC.

Notion of anonymity as an enabling factor for transparent CMC, rather than self- disclosing CMC can be furtherly supported by the idea of asynchronicity as one of the reasons for the disinhibition effect (Suler, 2004). Asynchronous CMC causes more disinhibition. We suspect fully anonymous CMC SMS without profiles, such as 4chan.org, to be highly asynchronous when compared to Facebook.com and Youtube.com samples. This is because identified or pseudonymous SM platforms have profile pages and notifications. Profiles usually allow users to receive notifications on their CMC discussions, which boost synchronicity of the CMC. Meanwhile, fully anonymous, profile-less SM platforms do not provide such affordance to the users. Furtherly disinhibited people can be more transparent by discharging their personal attitudes/opinions.

Additionally, the lack of online reputation schemes (Bernstein et al., 2011) is suspected to have had a positive effect on the results of toxicity and transparency of fully anonymous users' CMC groups. Meanwhile, the presence of online reputation schemes is presumably boosting self-disclosures and the civil discourse of identified and pseudonymous users. Most of the social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit and many more, have some sort of CMC reputation schemes implemented in the platform, such as likes, retweets, upvotes, favorites and ect. These schemes are known to reduce toxic behavior and disinhibition effect (Bernstein et al., 2011) and based on the results, we conclude that it had a debilitating effect on user' CMC transparency.

Pseudonymous Users CMC

When it comes to toxic CMC of the pseudonymous users, the group was leaning closer to fully identified users with regards to toxicity and self-disclosure. This is because there were

little bigotry and foul language. However, they tended to use more mockery and sarcasm as tools to express the dislike for the advertisement. It is worth noting, that based on the findings, even pseudonymous identity seemed to be anchoring and hinder users' ability to be fully transparent as fully anonymous users. We suggest, that ownership of an accouCnt or a profile, even pseudonymous, activates the cognitive systems regarding reputation and negates, to some extent, the "stranger on the train effect" (Bernstein et al., 2011), thus it prevents people from going "full toxic" in their CMC, as seen in the anonymous responses to the Gillette's ad.

Lastly, contrary to the identified group, the pseudonymous users tended to be more concealing of their personal information, as self-disclosure instances were minor and few. Pseudonymity, unlike anonymity, allows users to create their own virtual identities, that do not mirror the real-life identities of the users' (Lin & Wang, 2014). This may allow pseudonymous users to detach from their real-life selves and their real experiences, which prevents them to be self- disclosing of their personal information. This would explain the lack of self-disclosing trends in the pseudonymous group.

Conclusions

Regarding toxicity, the content analysis results suggested that lower levels of identification, indeed, eliminate accountability of user' communication, as well as distances (IPD) and disinhibits users from using civil discourse techniques to voice their negative opinions on the advertisement. As a result, anonymous and pseudonymous communications in the sample have been observed to be more toxic. While identified users are bound by reputational systems and consequences of their actions, thus, real names restrict higher levels of disinhibition. This led to a more grounded and controlled civil discourse in the identified group.

Moreover, user communications also suggest, that fully identified people tend to self- disclose private information to a higher degree. It could mean, that users with real names tend to be more self-centered, as the high level of identification confines users to their real-life selves and limits the performance of self-constructed “online identity” that might be seen in pseudonymous or anonymous users. This causes identified users’ negative comments on

Gillette’s advertisement to be grounded and based on real-life experiences, such as - “I’ve been using Gillette for over 20 years, but not anymore”. However, the current research suggests, that while anonymous and pseudonymous groups showed low self-disclosure tendencies, the latter groups displayed higher levels of transparency into their real and ungrounded attitudes, because they were not restricted with IPD (Argyle & Dean, 1965) and reputational systems (Bernstein et al., 2011) as much as identified group would have.

The current conclusions based on the sample have some practical applications for PR practitioners and social media platform policies. However, the results can be generalized with caution and to a limited extent:

1) Negative eWOM is known to have an impact on brand image and lower

purchase intent (Reichelt et al., 2014). Companies and PR professionals are

advised carefully to select the platforms in which to release the possibly

controversial content, such as Gillette's advertisement. Sample analysis

indicates that fully identified, or at least monitored pseudonymous user

platforms minimize the likeliness of toxic CMC/ eWOM that can result in

negative affiliations, which might hurt the brand image by introducing

unwanted associations (Cantallops & Salvi, 2014). However, this will not

necessarily reduce the negative attitudes, just reduce the toxic and uncivil

discourse, that might possibly carry a higher eWOM impact on passive readers

(Teng, Wei Khong, Wei Goh, & Yee Loong Chong, 2014).

2) Anonymous and Identified user bases have their own advantages and

disadvantages. CMC platforms should first consider their primary mission,

before adopting and enforcing either level of identification for their users.

Evidently, anonymous/pseudonymous user bases will be more efficient at

being transparent and true towards CMC surrounding sensitive topics and

personal attitudes. However, it can also bring unwanted toxicity due to lack of

accountability and disinhibition effect. Anonymity and pseudonymity user base

can work best on CMC platforms focused on sensitive topics, such as sexuality,

religion and etc. However, to reduce the risk of the platform becoming toxic,

some monitoring/control precautions are to be implemented.

Meanwhile, identified user CMC platforms are less toxic and more accountable based on the sample data and conclusions of prior research papers. This means that platforms with consumer reviews would be more credible and less toxic if the users are fully identified. In general, identified user platforms, such as Facebook, would produce a more civil environment for user CMC and would require less monitoring to curb toxicity and possibly even lower the negative impact of eWOM (Sen & Lerman, 2007). However, such platforms would possibly diminish user transparency on more sensitive topics due to a lack of disinhibiting effects.

Study Limitation

While the sample results from three different groups of different levels of user identification seem to point to clear CMC pattern differences, the sample size was

insignificant for conclusive evidence and broad generalization of the results. Due to the qualitative study approach and small sample, some patterns and trends could have failed to notice. To add to this, it is given, that qualitative content analysis tradition is subjective to researcher’s observations and interpretation of trends/patterns when coding, reducing credibility and reliability (Leung, 2015). To increase the credibility of the research, the paper also includes memos (see appendix B), that explains some of the design decisions and big changes that occurred during the writing phase.

Moreover, the sampling of the study is troublesome, as the study required the user's

CMC with three different levels of identification on the same subject. The biggest drawback is that the research had to span over three different social media platforms as a result. Using different social media platforms can possibly affect the results, as more civil and level-minded people might prefer one platform over the other (e.g.: Facebook over YouTube), therefore, generating less toxic CMC.

The broad concept of self-disclosure was difficult to code and measure. The current study has coded the minor and major disclosures of private information details from users themselves. However, self-disclosure could also include expression of various attitudes and opinions, which was not possible to categorize and examine for repeating trends in the current research. In the current opalization of the study and present codes, we were unable to unequivocally notice a trend of higher self-disclosure within anonymous user CMCs in the sample.

Future Recommendations

Similar future research avenues could benefit greatly from furtherly improving the definition of online self-disclosures in brand-related CMC scenarios. There is a great deal of literature on why identified people do it, however, there is a lack of knowledge and measurable into how anonymity might affect different types of self-disclosure. For this to be possible, we suggest individual interview approach with subjects who participate in anonymous CMC. One thing the current research can only hypothesize is why anonymous users tend to be more transparent about their controversial opinions, yet leave out their personal experiences and/or other details out of the CMCs. We believe that a qualitative study with individual interviews would be able to answer such questions and, in the process, better define anonymous users’ self-disclosure tactics.

Additionally, a quantitative and comparative study is also needed to, in fact, prove that the trends seen in this qualitative study, indeed can be expressed and generalized over a larger population of social media users. Twitter could be a beneficial platform to conduct a comparative analysis between identified and pseudonymous user behavior archetypes, as they have huge datasets open to the general public. Peddinti et al., (2014, 2017) was able to analyze a big dataset from Twitter.com, which led to very generalizable conclusions. Such datasets can be used to draw huge samples of fully identified and pseudonymous.

Lastly, the study revealed that users’ brand related CMC can be quite toxic.

Researchers could easily investigate how internet readers respond to such negative word-of- mouth in an experimental setting regarding source credibility. To our knowledge, no research exists, that would explain how different people would react to the same negative messages

coming from fully identified and anonymous sources. Considering that internet surfers were to be found equally impacted by word-of-mouth of anonymous users as identified ones, such research could help establish the rising importance of anonymous brand-related CMC research field even furtherly.

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Appendix A

Youtube.com - Pseudonymous Group https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koPmuEyP3a0&t=1s

Case Username Comment No.

1 Take you insult of an advert and lern some manners anybody who buys a product made by child labour full Leo Cor3 off double standers is a fool days ago

2 Benito This is Men prosecution by feminazis. sick and tired of Napolitano men stigmatization as violent. Gillette sucks. I swear to god from here to the end of my life I am not buying gillette and do all my efforts to avoid any P&G

3 Jaqen Congratulations you have lost a life time customer. I H'ghar WILL NEVER PURCHASE another thing from you 1 week ago ever again! (edited) SHAME ON YOU!

4 Kyle Rook The Bull Sh*t storm continues. Thank you P&G for 1 week ago making me informed of your bigoted, sexist views through your Gillette ad. I will be avoiding all of your products from now on.

5 Gillete has fallen to Feminism...but there's one that still Half-Life- holds value,thats called Dollar shave club,Thanks for Lore being there in a moment of darkness in society. 2 weeks ago

6 Kenan Whole my life when my father told me that im a man he 2 weeks was telling me that im a raping toxic human.Thank you ago for getting me out of the dark Gillette.

7 The_barron Boys of today are the men of tomorrow' So this is aimed _biker towards little boys who are 'responsible for other 3 weeks peoples actions'? Because I always see little kids ago walking about with facial hair

Let's just blame ALL men for what other men did

Bring back the times where people weren't offended by emotions.

8 So all white guys are creepy perverts, bullies and domestic violence perpetrators, and just plain TOXIC! Paul how presumptive. Congratulations Gillette on pissing 3 weeks off your loyal customers. ago (edited)

9 i would like to know where these idiots live, i mean, Davide seriously you never see dads divide two children 1 month ? if they are play obviously you let them play, but when ago they aren't you divide them, it was like this from the beggining of the human race, even animals do this... WTF they are talking about?? in what world they live??

10 Watched this cancer and switched to Harry’s. Half the metzgarda cost, just as good. I don’t want my razor company to vid1 agree with me politically, I want my razor company to month ago not have any political opinions or agendas.

11 I watched this then checked what razor I use and it good dog1 happens to be a Gillette. I think the commercial is over month ago the top but Its not going to make me not buy a Gillette

product. Some conservatives get real triggered over conservative values

12 And here I am punching walls to harden my knuckles to GrandMast break jaws with my hooks erNigga2 months ago

13 This is hilarious I love how they try to make men look Smitty like the bad guys lol and that we are a bunch of scum Plays2 bags and a bunch of rapists who don’t deserve to live months lol like I am laughing way too hard at how stupid this is ago

14 Kris Skora “The boys watching this today are going to be the men 2 months of tomorrow” ain’t none of them going be men if ago they’re brought up like this, Jesus Christ the future society is going be so weak. You’ll get arrested for disagreeing with someone or misgendering them. Pathetic.

15 Women also shaves, so why not make a commercial about them too? They don't differ much with men when doing violence and harassment. It's not the gender but Briel 0003 the behavior. The message is not wrong but it implies months what the femenazis are preaching about are the only ago truth.

16 Corporate advertising trying to influence people's Itisimatadv mindset, it's nothing new but who do they think they are c to assume the position of moral arbiter when they are a 3 months business so we know their number one objective is ago profiteering, no profit making institution should have authority over people's social values, conflict of interest it's that simple, it's not hard to see why people are pissed off.

17 "toxic masculinity"? All I can say is ... well, let Gillette Seven say it: "One dimensional labels limit your potential ... Generation Take a step and stand against labels." ... oh, but that's

s the ad for women, who are, you know, goddesses 3 months waiting to be unleashed. Because: toxic psychology ago meets toxic marketing.

18 Mastakilla9 Thanks for the moral advice, multi-national company 1 that was recently caught profiting off forced child 1 week ago labour and price fixing.

19 I strongly recommend against Gillette and P&G suckonthis products, they have been known to cause heartburn, u2be arseburn and carpetburn. 12 hours ago

20 Anon None Next time make sure your advertising company isn't full 4 months of Marxists that hate your customer base. ago

21 Jimmy HaveJustComeOutOfMySafeSpaceToSayIloveMyOver 6 hours ago ExpensiveGilletteRazorsAndDoNotMindThatOnlyWhit (edited) eMenAreToxicOrThatAccountsAndCommentsAreGetti ngDeletedAndThatThereIsShadowBanningIWillNowRe turnToMySafeSpaceAndMyOverExpensiveRazorsThan YouGoodGillette

22 E F Whoever is running Gillette's social media account. 4 months Deleting comments and turning off votes will not save ago your failed ad campaign. Congratulations you are "New Coke 2019". You're not going to hide and cover this up. We will fight ANY company who thinks they can lecture the public about the racist, anti-men, anti-white concept of "wokeness" and "social justice". A lesson to other companies trying this, we will go after you next. We are not going to become socialist, we are not going to stop men from being men, we are not going to adopt feminism, we are NOT going to use your "pronouns" and we are going to keep telling you where you can shove your "progressiveness"

23 Really happy this commercial came out and exposed Dream Gillete for who they really are. I used to support them Life not knowing how sexist they were. Notebook 4 days ago

24 HAHAHA the marketing director was too afraid to say Imashaaar "no" to a feminist VP's ad pitch. So this is the k consequence. 4 months ago

25 Alien This has been an error of such magnitude that everyone Pickle involved needs to be reading the help wanted section 4 months tomorrow. We won't forget, and we won't let others ago forget. Ever.

26 My wife's boyfriend says this will be the best Guybrush commercial in 2019 Threepwo od 4 months ago

28 Some snowflake woman at the top of the hierarchy Private decided that only men harass... seems fair Cow 1 week ago

29 This is the best advertisement for growing a beard that ALG Bass I've ever seen. 4 months ago

30 I did my semi annual shopping yesterday. I researched Junkyard prior to going and double checked while I was there. I Dog1 day purchased no products from proctor and gamble or any ago of the companies they own. Switching was easy. Competitor's prices were about the

same or cheaper. I also found after listing everything that I was going to purchase that I could downsize even more after realizing many products overlap each other. Thank you proctor and gamble for helping make my life easier and saving me money at the same time.

31 Pan Da To all the people saying we need to boycott Gillette.... 4 months ago what we REALLY need to do is boycott Procter and Gamble. Spread the word.

This commerical gave me the final push to switch to 32 TNTspaz Dollar Shave Club. Thank you they provide much better 1 day ago razors at a much cheaper price and don't tell me I'm wrong for being born a man.

Facebook.com - Identified Users https://www.facebook.com/gillette/videos/942236055972585/

Case No. Username Comment

1 John Killpack Dear leaders at Gillette,

As a consumer I look for two things when I make a purchase, a good product at a good price. I don't need or desire sanctimonious, virtue signaling and frankly creepy videos telling me to stop being a toxic male. You don't know me, you don't know my family, you don't know my friends, how dare you assume I or my children need your self congratulating and pathetic attempt to show you're "woke"?

I have multiple options when I buy shaving supplies. Despite using your product for the past 35+ years I'll be trashing my remaining razors and using a product from another company that recognizes their consumers desire a quality product, not patronizing and offensive drivel cloaked in politically correct, self congratulating form over substance videos.

I'm sure your board meetings are full off back slapping and self congratulatory statements celebrating how sensitive and un-masculine your company has become while ignoring the fact you've offended a majority of your consumers. Good job acting the unwelcome, obnoxious and intrusive stranger rather than improving your consumer's options and experiences.

Re-align your priorities and focus on providing a good, economical product not virtue signaling.

2 Vince Prince- Gillette, you can take this commercial and shove it. How dare Reevus Darius you act like men are the only ones that need to improve themselves! The most vile and cruel words to me have come from women. Also, you're going to have that witch Anna Kasparian from #TYT preach to me? Eff no. I can no longer use your product. Way to piss people off. Good day.

3 Giancarlos Why are you trying to make me hate myself for being born Calderon male and apologize for it. I'm not responsible for the bad actions of other men

4 John Milo I've used Gillette products for over 15 years. I am throwing out and will start with a new brand. If you wanted to inspire men, you could have told the narrative of our building Western Civilisation, which has liberated people (particularly women), more than any other nation and culture. You could have told the story of men who have heroically given their life for God, family and country. You clearly have some third wave feminist calling the shots there which will unfortunately cost you. Best of luck - NOT!

5 Alex Ignas When I will be seeing the same type of title also made about men and women , than we are talking, until then it"s just propaganda. Women as just as big as a problem due to their behaviour, because they are humans(who would have guessed ?)

6 Bradley Hall Dear shillette.., I use your razors to shave my dog's a$$ - now you'll know what to kiss when you lose more customers

7 Bob Harris F@#ck you.... last product of yours I ever buy.

8 Zack Peters Totally not cool to hit on women in person. The only way to have a meaningful connection is on a hookup app, right?

9 Darren Your brand sucks, since you entered the political arena. I hope Coffenberry you are prepared for the backlash associated with ignorance(yours).

10 Jhon Jhonson The idea behind this is absolutely amazing. They way it was presented was absolutely horrible. Maybe you should take inspiration from the watch company Egard Watches

11 Божидар Hello Gilette, just made the first step to move away from all

Гюлмезов the products your parent company - P&G sells - now I say goodbye to Ariel, next will be your razors after I finish my stock, and last will be Head and shoulders, as since I'm almost bald, it will take years until I have used my current bottle

12 Ryan Anderson Thank you so much for this ad, Gillette. Thanks to this ad, I discovered how superior Shick razors are when compared to Gillette. Closer shave, longer lasting and no anti-male agenda. Booyah!

13 Jon T L Chiu Needed I remind you that you are the product, and I don't need you to lecture me on what is best a man can be. #GetWokeGoBroke

14 Gary Curtis I have been meaning to write and voice my opinion about this commercial and just didn’t have the chance until now. The war on men is disgusting and real. This attack on men is now being used by this company to make statements about “what a real man is or should be” makes me sick. I raise my son with the same values my dad taught me and his taught him for generations. Thanks to companies spewing stuff like this my son even can see that he’s growing up in a society against him. Maybe a few men in the world that are not great examples of what a man should be, but this is just too much. I have stopped purchasing Gillette products as have many of my friends and family. My hopes are that you realize your mistake and change.

15 Arty Kushner Ok. So no response heres what is going on my wall every day. All my 400 friends are already sharing it. Thanks!�

““PLEASE SHARE THIS TO SAVE FRIENDS FROM BEING RIPPED OFF AND MISTREATED! Thanks!

Do NOT subscribe to Gillette blades deal. I did. At first it was cool. Then they shipped me the wrong blades (subscription shipment) that don’t match the razor they sent in the initial shipment. So now I can’t shave. Lol. They gave me a number to call where I had to go through voice mail then sit on hold for a long time (10-15 minutes) with no one close to helping me. I text them again that I’m unhappy and they erase those texts. They stink. Buyer beware! I’ll tag Gillette in this for being such low lives!!!!”

16 Thomas Wilkin Masculinity takes on a different meaning for young boys of color. Masculinity serves to protect young Black/Brown boys against acts of oppression . This is not the same day to day

reality for White males. "Masculinity" is the underlying fear that drives White racism. This campaign only serves to further weaponize fear of men of color.

17 David Levy @ Gillette �.., go f yourselves .., you anti male fem libtard a- holes, is that all the credit you can give towards men � .

Never never never buying your products ever again!!!

18 John You had no business in trying to define manhood and should Kanellopoulos not have collaborated with a hard core feminist to put out this insulting video. After 30 years of using Gillette razors, I have switched brands and never plan to go back. Stick to selling razors next time.

19 Kerry Clarke- Not a fan of this. I don't like the generalisation. Will there be a Smith similar ad to combat toxic femininity? Not all men fit these stereotypes.

20 Yann Le Barz Hi Gillette, impressed that you seem to answer each comments.

My question for you then is: why in a world were female genital mutilation, child brides, grooming gangs, honor killings and polygamy is on the rise, including in the US (and all being serious attack to women's rights) are you focussing your attention on bullying? Not withstanding that bullying is an issue, but dont you think the aforementionned are a little more pressing to tackle? Thx

21 Charles Fletcher I want to thank you for saving me a lot of money on your products. I will be spending it everywhere else. Gillette #ToxicStupidity

22 Terry Cooper I taught my children manners, morals, how women should expect to be treated and, them have done just fine. A feminist director however, that would imply that men are bad therefore, their boys are bad, should be arrested for child abuse.

23 Bob Roberts Your commercial painted all men bad. It is the most prejudice commercial I have ever witnessed. You are hateful people.

24 Gabe Krechmer Shaming men does not get you what you want: it just polarizes people and will create resentment with some. Starting an honest conversation would be more effective, but I'm not sure that's what Gilette wants here; this is marketing, after all.

25 Anthony Why do you not show off your product at all? What if McPherson someone didnt know? They'll just assume you're an anti- bullying company.

26 Scott Tucker Hey, was in the market for razors for both myself and my son. Just wanted to drop by and tell how much I thoroughly enjoyed NOT considering your products. Thanks!

27 Karl Winslow I just use my last Gillette blade a little while ago and bought the schick Hydro five because of the stupid commercial. I got to say I actually like the schick better

28 Bradley Hall sure hope your parent company makes analgesic balm.., you feeling the butthurt yet shillette??

29 Yann Le Barz Ok, I see Gillette likes sports and competition looking at their "Grant" scheme. So from today new game for you. I will stop buying P&G products for the rest of my life, for me and my family and making sure my loved ones are aware of my position, 1 product at a time for every day without answer, until I receive a response to my earlier question. Why, because I can. And no, this is not toxic masculinity. It is consumer power. So today, I commit not to purchase any Gillette product ever. Tomorrow, Head and Shoulder (my shampoo for the past 20 years..), the day after pampers (I have 1 baby at home and 1 on the way), etc. I can see another 8 or 9 products of the P&G brand that we purchase regularly, so that gives you 8 days. Fair?

30 Troy Hill Wow. I’m not sure who your target audience for this ad was, but I am personally offended by the in vogue virtue signaling term “toxic masculinity”. Men’s masculinity and inherent BIOLOGICAL traits don’t seem to bother you a bit when we join the military and use those traits to protect your right to insult all men by generalizing.

Your company bought the destroyer I served on after it was decommissioned, and I am now disgusted by that fact.

I’ll never spend another penny buying Gillette products. Just joined dollar shave club.

31 Timmy Beer Gillette if you want to take the high road do something real, stop testing on animals and working with known companies

that exploits children and the environment

32 Robert Barden Heading to store to buy razors for first time since your SJW campaign. Can assure you I will not purchase your products on this or any further trips. You have lost my business for life. Stay out of politics if you want to stay in business.

33 Steve Sopko Soooo, want to know why Gillette company came out attcking men as being males? goes back to its founding... "Gillette then turned his intellectual energies to publicizing a view of utopian socialism in a series of books and other writings. He found competition wasteful and envisaged a planned society in which economic effort would be rationally organized by engineers. In 1910 he vainly offered former president Theodore Roosevelt a million dollars to act as president of an experimental “World Corporation” in the Arizona Territory. Gillette remained president of his company until 1931 but retired from active management in 1913." Gillette also wrote some book about cities being surrounded by a waterfall, and self sustaining, on and on.. typical utopia bs.. of course it always meant da gub ment got your earnings and controlled you...Utopian socialism, Political and social idea of the mid-19th century. Adapted from such reformers as Robert Owen and Charles Fourier, utopian socialism drew from early communist and socialist ideas. According to the "King Camp Gillette" section of the Engines of Our Ingenuity website, prior to World War I, Gillette envisioned his "World Corporation" in the Arizona Territory, with former U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt serving as its leader. Roosevelt wasn't interested, so he subsequently turned to social reformer and writer Sinclair Lewis and auto maker Henry Ford, to no avail. That essentially ended the vision of a "World Corporation." Annnnnd of course he supported Hoover and his marxist/socialist ideals

34 Michael Whoever thought this was going to be a good idea for a add Solesbee should get out of advertising, no more Gillette for me.

35 Pascal St- the most pathetic excuse of an AD i have seen in many many Laurent years... you should very seriously fire your whole marketing team

36 Ralf Anders This campaign is sexist against men, your biggest customer group. Have you been hacked or did you just go crazy?

37 Thomas P False narrative. All real men have stood up to bullies, Pearso respected women, provided for their families and strive every day to do what's right. Gillette is a disgrace for promoting a

false narrative and I will forgo buying any of your products in the future.

38 Vince Prince- Gillette, you can take this commercial and shove it. How dare Reevus Darius you act like men are the only ones that need to improve themselves! The most vile and cruel words to me have come from women. Also, you're going to have that witch Anna Kasparian from #TYT preach to me? Eff no. I can no longer use your product. Way to piss people off. Good day.

39 Sarah Fuller Obviously Gillete is not the Best a Man can get,, when you Powell lump all men into a catagory. Will not be buying your razors for "my" son.

40 John R Some scenes of this commercial are right on, like the daddy Contreraz encouraging his daughter, the man stopping the boy from being bullied. But overall, this type of bad behavior is not limited to men. Girls bully too, maybe even more than boys. The reason the ad is so offensive is that it singles out the male population (and presumably, your primary clientele). Gillette, are you planning on running a female version of this kind of ad for your Venus line? "The Best a Woman Can Get"? Showing feminine toxic behavior? If not, which I suspect is not in Gillette's plans, then this ad can be considered as a jab against men and borderline misandric. I could not support the message you've propagated, thus I could no longer continue being a client.

41 Scotty Archer I'm pleased to announce I just received my brand new Razor & Blades Thanks Schick, Unfortunately for Gillette and their advising Campaign you lost my business

42 Bernard Roberts So get younger men to buy your product by guilt-tripping them for the grandfather's actions? Seems professional. If my money is going to fund a guilt trip like this then you don't need my services. I find your depiction of generalizing all men as bad characters shaming.

43 Avraham Stern As a SJW I totally agree with this Ad... no, Im just joking, I have never see such a racist, misandry and one point view thing on internet. Do yout think that women do not fight each other? do not bully ? do not make bad things? shame on you Gillette, I will never budy your razors and cosmetics ;)clever company will make 2 versions, for men and for women for equality, but you just provoke... your bad

44 Brynjulf Ei What a stigmatizing commercial, so full of political

correctness!!! No more Gillette for me because I'm not a predator, just a normal man that lives a normal life!!

45 Ryan Leach Excellent marketing campaign now you have full support of feminist too bad that they don't shave though and support of demasculine men who don't have enough testosterone to even grow a beard.

46 Bob Sundahl Gillette needs to follow up their recent add with the establishment of a land fill for all of the purchased and unwanted razor blades. I have a package of blades and a razor I wish to dispose of in a environmentally safe location.

Costco is now selling knock-offs of Gillette razors and blades. I recommend them for a politics-free shave, and at a lower cost.

47 Bobbi Goodwin Hate to break it to you but this commercial should target the all too violent liberals which include both men and women! I'm so sick of advertisers getting involved with politics and propaganda! Also, hate to break it to you but women are just as mean if not meaner and they are scandalous and truly the daughters of eve with their lying seducing B.S. then crying wolf. Gillette you are basically saying all men are evil and so I say in defense of all good men out there including my son, my husband, my cousins, uncles, and on and on.....GO TO HELL! I will now no longer buy your products for my husband. Might go ahead and give that men's club a try like I always thought about doing. Oh, not to split hairs but why were all the mean/inappropriate men white? Did you not want to show scenes from Chicago of men shooting each other? Hmmm?

48 Sino Accetta For the last 20 years ,I have always told everyone that your marketing move that your company has made to give razors to high school grads was a fantastic idea. Genius! I’m now after seeing this ridiculous ad , I told my two sons were no longer buying your product. Will be receiving 3 Harry’s razors Tuesday. Keep up the good work.

49 Peter With respect to this ad two questions, why did you choose Kim Theodorou Gehrig, an extremely pro feminist individual to direct the ad and place an immediate bias as to its intention? That being a negative one. Second question, the scene in the ad where the mother or whatever the female relation to the boy is, why is the she the one making the negative comments? As the bubbles

appear before the stampede of "toxic boys" fully enter the scene. Also I would like to add that there are many faults and negative connotations in this ad. Many have broken it down and shown the inaccurate portrayal of most men, masculine men. You have chosen to paint many based solely on the actions of a few. An inaccurate few. Save face apologize and make another commercial... doing it right this time

50 Pedro Mendoza This creeps me out, now manhood it's wrong. I won't use Frausto anymore your products

51 Joseph Rodgers https://barbasol.com/ Here's a company that respects you as a man, and won't lump you into a catagory with offenders. My Gillette razors went to the trash can with my Nikes.

52 Brian Burke For a blade that can handle your masculinity, try Defender Razor

53 Piotr Para This ad is the best I could get! After being a loyal customer for 17 years I am absolutely shocked by this vile and disgusting narrative. Now I bought another brand and not only Ive saved money, also got a better shave! I will teach my son to never buy a gilette product.

54 Jason Cole Will never buy one of your products again. Been using them for decades. You won’t ever get another penny from me.

55 Kathie Lopes In my drawer in my bathroom I have three different versions of your Gillette razors. I have one refill left. Also in my drawer is only one lonely Schick razor. I will be throwing your Gillette's out so that I will never be tempted to use them again. I will be buying refills for the Schick. And maybe some day if and when you decide to tackle toxic feminists, I may think about coming back but probably not

56 Patches As soon as I use use up all of my Gillette razors, I will never McKranky purchase another Gillette product. I don’t need a razor company telling me how to conduct myself. Screw you Gillette.

57 Sean Brooks Just used my last disposable... not another dime for gillette.. they hate me...

58 David Brody Sorry you feel so badly about males and sweeping judge us all as two dimensional single thought losers. I no longer buy your products. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=- X94TPrzWsI&index=11...

59 Robert Cook Interesting that most of these comments are from women, must be afraid to post the men's opinion's. I don't need anyone to tell me how to treat women, that job came from my parents. Good bye Gillette.

60 Ricky Richards After that pathetic attempt of virtue signalling and shitting on all men, my household is in the process of purging all of P&G brands, FOREVER. Not easy to do when P&G owns so many brands but we'll get there. Wasn't even my suggestion. That came from the powerful women in my household.

61 Joseph Rodgers You'll never see another dime from me. "Gillette the most offensive a company can get".

62 Cindy For a company that sells inferior pink razors for women and McDonald the sharper razors for men and then put this ad in the Super Weekly Bowl! You’re implying that men are bullies and they’re toxic in their masculinity. I hope people boycott your all your razors, both handheld and electric. You should’ve left politics out of it. You are obviously not the being best you can be.#BoycottGilletteproducts

63 Stuart Wise What a stupid ad. Just what I needed to make the move to Harry's razors. A new razor, and refills for less than the price of Gillette refills.

Piss off Gillette. Using your product as a political platform was a stupid idea.

64 Mike Britten Dear Gillette, Unlike you, I believe that most men are already good, not just "some". They protect their families, they protect others, they are the ones running into the burning building or into danger. Most of them are respectful to other people both men and women. Then we come to race. You just couldn't resist making it the POC man being the good guy correcting the evil white guy when in reality, when you look at the disrespectful attitude & language used by the black community especially in rap music then I'd say they have a bigger problem. However, your courage didn't permit you to go that far when there is a far easily target to vilify. You are free to market your company as you wish but I'd decided to stop buying your product as a result and my next purchase will be wilkinson sword. I wish you luck & no ill will but I think you have made a huge mistake. Time will tell.

65 Michael L. It's really simple. For my own small business, I pray on hand Wells III and knees that my marketing department gives me some

indication that they're about to release a commercial that's about to condescend, scold, and chastise my entire client base so I have a chance to FIRE them before they can do it.

I thank you Gillette for demonstrating to me why I should keep a tighter leash on my marketing department.

66 Kerry Bickham I had been using your products since I was 15, I'm 61 now. just threw out what I had of them , and will not be using anything associated whit your very confused company.So now your saying all those men who fought and died for our country were bad men, to masculine, I don't think anyone who saw them storm Normandy beach thought they were to masculine . You should be teaching boys to be real men, you the ones who helped establish this great country, the ones who respect women for being women, and having babies, and raising children . the ones who help the needy. the ones who are big brothers to fatherless boys, and set the bar high for being a man,the men who love their Mother's and respect their Grand mother's. Yes real men, you've lost me, and I'm sure countless thousands with your weak virtue signaling. BYE, BYE, Gillette.

67 Autumn K Oh it ABSOLUTELY WAS TO BLAME ALL MEN. Will Roberts enjoy watching the fires you keep trying to put out. The real Americans won’t tolerate this nonsense

68 Francis Côté Simplified rhetoric produced to create a buzz due to plummeting market share. Gillette controlled about 70 percent of the U.S. market a decade ago. In 2017, its market share dropped to below 50 percent, according to Euromonitor. This ad will end up being a cautionary tale of a failed attempt to capitalize on mainstream pressure to boost sales. I, for one, will never buy a Gillette product again

69 Teigan Yeah I’m sticking with Harry’s, your razor is over priced Weissman anyways.

70 Martin Funny, all this time I was under the impression that being Lawrence "masculine" was being the one who defends the weak, and does the jobs that are dangerous but neccesary to help others. Kind of like the definition of a "Warrior" a person that with one hand can hold a child with love and care. And with the same hand hold a weapon to protect others.

Yeah, I'll be purchasing my shaving products somewhere else.

4Chan.org - Anonymous Users http://boards.4channel.org/news/thread/387938/gillette-is-feeling-the-financial-burn-thanks-to https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/200040609/

Case No. Username Comment

1 Anonymous I am the CEO and I forgot to add one thing at the end, 'Fuck ID:qBeBe7fL Niggers'. buy my watches fgts

2 Anonymous fuck typical faggot response. the gillett add doesnt distinguish ID:j9MeWLe6 between good men and shit cunts, ergo it implys that all men are shit cunts.

but lets be absolutely clear about one thing. this gillett ad isnt about making men better. its about riding the wave of anti-male sentiment sweeping across the bastions of social media and main stream media. gillett like any other company gives no fucks except about making cash. they are trying to appear to be more socially sensitive to increase revenue

3 Anonymous >>200080852 ID:j9MeWLe6 fuck off you inbred cunt. what the fuck are you even saying. no where in that add did i see a suicide vest cunt blow up a market place

go suck a dick

4 Anonymous There were too many blacks. Do people think blacks make up ID:8JOYEtuh 50% of our country. 14%

5 Anonymous holy shit the gillet ad was fucking gay. fuck those cunts. ID:j9MeWLe6 imagine if was made for muslims, and trying to tell muslims not to be terrorists. imagine the outrage.

double standards are fucking everywhere

#notallmen

6 Anonymous The problem is that no one has a problem with 'portraying men in ID:flpHtYEs a positive light'. The problem is the sheer number of men who AREN'T the things you mention in the ad, and those men are who the Gilette ad was directed to. Great men deserve to be recognized as such, BUT SHITTY MEN DESERVE TO BE CALLED OUT

AS SUCH. And shitty women, and shitty politicians, and so on. Equally. Categorically.

Rushing out a 'response' of 'b-but men are great!' is tone-deaf af in a changing age.

Good luck with your brand, sir.

7 Anonymous but lets be absolutely clear about one thing. this gillett ad isnt ID:j9MeWLe6 about making men better. its about riding the wave of anti-male sentiment sweeping across the bastions of social media and main stream media. gillett like any other company gives no fucks except about making cash. they are trying to appear to be more socially sensitive to increase revenue

8 Anonymous Our challenges as men are grave and worldwide. They should be ID:mG3SplG5 treated as such, not as a marketing ploy. No way Gillette actually believes the horseshit they just shoveled, they just tried to latch a product on to what their advertising team deemed to be a subject that'd resonate with people to make money. Not to actually improve society or "make a man the best he can be", it's to make money. I can't help but notice you 3 are somewhat of the same mindset; that putting money in the equation somehow validates the statement. What kind of men need to involve shekel grubbing in order to validate the truth about themselves? Are your blood, sweat, tears, reputation, and health not good enough?

9 Anonymous If anything the pushback and outrage was muted, especially ID:X27LjenP compared to the psychotic shit the feral left does regularly. Was Gillette deplatformed and put out of business? No, they explained away the controversy and spread shills around on the internet. Did they fire the faggots and cunts who told them this was a good idea after it backfired? Of course not that would be sexist :^)

10 Anonymous It was a blatant kike critical theory attack on white men. All the ID:KZhArfv1 boys and father's depicted were white, despite whites not even being that violent.

Where is the outrage about toxic femininity? Why aren't there commercials about hypersluts, 30+ year old single cat ladies, dumb bitches that can't cook, fat disgusting feminists, etc? The modern female is a fucking mess compared to the modern man.

11 Anonymous It's just more of the same "We want men to be men but only by ID:QEDxp4D our very specific definitions of what constitutes a man or else b you're a sexist rapist ist ist ist ist ist ist phic phic ist ist..."

The irony being the "men" or "masculinity" that gilette wants to promote are the same ones no self-respecting feminist would touch with a barge pole. Nobody wants some overemotional, fragile, simpering, limp-wristed tool with no confidence, independent thought or initiative.

Oh and the black dude stopping the white guy from catcalling was hilarious.

12 Anonymous >Anyone else think the gillette ad thing was a bit overblown? ID:2BTzyT1+ After finally watching the ad, it wasn't really an 'anti-male' message, it was more of a 'step up' type of message. It's slightly unfair in the sense that a similar ad about women who are gold diggers or who create toxic environments at work would never fly, but the actual issues the ad hits on are real. I also think the reaction to the black guy standing up for the wamen is paranoid; the guy was mixed not 100% black, I don't think they're trying to say that ghetto nigs are the world's supreme gentlemen or something like that.

13 Anonymous giant organisation led by snowflakes rising up their ranks getting ID:pMTzsEcw ridiculed by masses because their new broadcast ideology is so fucked up. The masses are alg with the (((progressive))) suicide until its this thick. Good work EA i mean gillette you pushed to hard to fast

14 Anonymous I'll take anything that'll push me over the edge to boycott another ID:+Ks+b3sM GloboCorp brand. Support your local health and homecare product manufacturers.

A full-spectrum boycott of P&G is going to be tough for me though. I can stop buying Gillette products and Crest toothpaste easily. Old Spice aftershave is a bit harder, but I'll manage. It's getting rid of the Charmin Ultra-Strength toilet paper that's going to be tough.

15 Anonymous Don’t forget the suicides from female high school bullies, serial ID:ieSL8zRr cheaters and adultresses, the “I’m on the pill” venus fly-traps, the “I’d like to report a rape” liars, the “I AM IN MY PRIME” hate mongers.

Women as a group are collectively responsible for all these minority bitches. When is a sanitary towel company going to stand up for what is right?

16 Anonymous The point of it all is that it's just another way of shitting on men, ID:TgXj/1Ep specifically white men, as society loves to do today. And the

whole left is completely okay with it, of course. But let's see an ad that demonizes women making false rape claims, divorce, alimony, and child custody all heavily favoring them. How well would that be taken?

17 Anonymous it's bad because they conflate natural masculine behavior for men ID:+nd2DKbC with sexual harassment. They kind of try to establish a link between men being stron and masculine with men abusing women The classic "barbecue" and "men drinking in groups" aren't there by accident.

18 Anonymous I am just tired of being preached to by mega corporations pretending to care about people for money. I started buying Schick could its literally the same thing and they dont pretend to stand on some moral high ground when making razors

19 Anonymous Someone needs to write them shit like "You know, I'd LIKE to be part of my sons life and be a role model to combat toxic masculinity, but I only see him for an hour every two weeks because my wife got custody in the divorce after she cheated on me."

20 Anonymous Of course men have made major step ups, come on, women were sexe slaves 300years ago... I don't know why they don't seem to understand, if they push it to far, they will just lose everything they got those 70 last years...

21 Anonymous "All of you Africa Americans are responsible for the behavior of a few niggers. Stop being niggers". Stop forcing sjw horseshit on the American public.

22 Anonymous So there I was, putting on my rape shoes, and practicing my sexual ID:saXoAIkx harassment pickup lines this morning. I just got done cyberbullying my coworkers. It was time to shave, I yelled at my wife to smile because I demand it, while pinching her butt right after she told me she didn't consent to it. Putting on the shaving cream and thinking about how I can get my son into a fight at the next BBQ, I replaced the worn Gillette brand Mach3 and began to chant "boys will be boys" as I started to shave. Then suddenly my daughter burst into the bathroom holding her phone. As I began to mansplain to her why she isn't smart enough to know my shaving time is my time she showed me the new Gillette ad. I realized how my every view and behavior I've ever held dear was wrong. I'm calling in sick at the toxic masculinity factory today and registering Democrat. Thanks Gillette, now excuse me while I help to impeach.

23 Anonymous I get how some people see it as demonizing men, but honestly the ID:C9qUGLh response is really an overreaction. Yeah, it was a shitty ad, but I A feel like all these guys going out of their way to troll them just need a safe space. I really wasn't too triggered by the ad, and you guys are making us look like fools.

24 Anonymous >be cuckservative ID:yyLt4+kM >hate feeling like the minorities they attack on a daily basis >again, it hurts their FEELINGS and makes them offended, those things they claim to be above >go into a flying rage over a tame advertisement telling men they can shake off these stereotypes in a civil manner >of course it flies over all the 95 IQ republiturds and ultra-fragile "alpha males" with cream-puff egos >wew lad

shut the fuck up worthless cunt

its corporate nagging, and they can fuck off and die

25 Anonymous Then explain the reasons. Don't give me that: they are dumb 04/26/19(Fri)2 bitches. No they are not, they are smart and know what they are 3:16:05 doing. There is a reason behind all of this. No.387956 They have a long term view, i can't see what else.

26 Anonymous This. I've used gillette since they sent me a free razor and razor set 04/30/19(Tue) for my 16th birthday. That was a brilliant marketing campaign. 20:28:45 No.389583 The idea of a male product being advertised using feminist ideology is ridiculous, so I simply prefer to be one more tiny hit in their increasingly significant product losses.

It sucks because I love their product, but if you give them money after they issue an advertisement as retarded as the last several they've aired, you're a goddamn cuck.

27 Anonymous I'd like to know who told them that pooping on their target 04/26/19(Fri)2 demographic was a sound marketing strategy. I understand that 2:50:33 women are starting to buy their razors too. But you don't sell No.387940 things to women by making men look bad. Women, by and large; like men.

28 Anonymous it's probably just a tumblrette scourge sneaking into the company 04/26/19(Fri)2 and subverting it. 2:55:55 No.387945 tumblrette marketing scum: let's make a man-hating ad!

tumblrette oversight board: ok

remember, companies are not really a real thing. it's just a bunch of people, and if those people are subversively political, the company will be, too, even at the expense of the company's own survival.

29 Anonymous It's like the Pepsi BLM ad fiasco. Everybody flipped their shit and 04/26/19(Fri)2 called the ad tonedeaf. But it actually ended up measurably 3:47:12 improving the brand by associating it with a pivotal cultural No.387970 phenomenon.

This is literally the exact same strategy. People may think they make consumer choices rationally, but advertising isn't about directly convincing consumers to, say, switch from Coke to Pepsi. It's to get people to talk about Pepsi more than Coke so that, say, the apathetic businessman chooses it for parties.

30 Anonymous You are all Ass Pies for bitching on a forum thread as if any of 04/27/19(Sat)1 your opinions or thoughts matter to anyone of relevance. You all 1:48:17 may as well be pissing against the wind in a hurricane, because No.388170 nothing you do or say online will ever amount to anything..

Appendix B: Memos

● 30/03/2019 Sampling change: Initial data sample was supposed to be drawn from Youtube.com video on controversial samsung galaxy phone. However, the decision was made to change the sample to revolve around gillette’s controversial advertisement. This is because the gillette controversy spanned over youtube, 4chan and facebook. It also yielded more substantial comments and negative feedback, that was required for the study to get toxic and self-disclosing sample over all different platforms.

● 12/04/2019 Methodology section and codebook rework:

Initial open coding codebook. Coding using grounded theory to look for trends between 3 different samples. Conclusion and descision made on 18/04/2019 the study does not require positive comments, because the starting point of the research is supposed to be about toxicity and self-disclosure.

Explanation and Quote No. Code

The user shows appreciation for the product or content of the video. 1. Appreciation Quote: - “Thank you for saving me a lot of money! Great arguments.” - 2.47

The opinions or statements presented in the comments are supported by either external information or first-hand personal experience, rather than own opinions or emotions. 2. Argumentation

Quote: - “Thank you for saving me a lot of money! Great arguments.” - 1.81

Direct expressed opinions on the topic. These are usually based on beliefs and not supported by arguments. 3. Opinion Quote: - “... IPHONE will never be as good as the Samsung .....” - 1.100

Users personal self-disclosure on the topic. Can be disclosing their personal experiences, their inner-beliefs and past/present or future actions. Can be similar to 4. Self-disclosure opinions, but presented as more personal.

Quote: - “I drive buses as a subcontractor sometimes (...) The pen allows me to do it all digitally. “ - 2.63

Actively expressing the need to keep privacy. For example: avoiding to self-disclose and expressing it. 5. Self-preservation Quote: “...don't want to say witch brand but it's not a huwawei...” - 2.6 Socially undesirable ways of communication fall under codes 6 to 10. These are:

Explanation and Quote No. Code

The users express negative emotions of dissatisfaction. These also include anger, strongly voiced disagreements and etc. Does not necessarily include an opinion or argument, but expression of dislike. 6. Dissatisfaction Quote: - “I don't understand what is his problem. I find this guy to be allergic to creative phones ” - 2.54

The users express themselves outside of publicly acceptable norms of discourse. These could be direct insults, sexual themes, childlike communication, other toxicity that 7. Incivility excludes just the use of profanity.

Quote: - “Blah blah blah! The Note 8 is awesome!” - 1.83

The users derail from the topic at hand and start commenting on a completely different topic, usually trying to draw parallels on the old topic, but not based on the original content topic. 8. Off-topic Quote: - “and now you will all suffer for it-just like how we allowed mtx and dlc and season passes to be normalized in gaming and now we're suffering for it.” - 1.19

Syntax and spelling errors in the user comments. Can also be abbreviations that are uncommon and not accepted. 9. Poor Grammar Quote: - “U like the note 8? U dont deserve it.” - 1.52

Use of curse words.

10. Profanity Quote: - “What the fuck do you mean don't buy the Samsung Galaxy Note 8?” - 1.50 Initial codebook

To see the two concepts interrelated, only negative valance comments were selected for the sample. This eliminated the need for codes such as appreciation.

The codes Opinion was deemed pointless, since every single comment that has some substance will contain an opinion.

● 12/04/2019

Focux on Toxicity and self-disclosure

Most of the toxicity codes were replaced with codes from O’Sullivan & Flanagin (2003), to put the research’ clear focus on toxicity and self disclosure, rather than something opposite of toxicity.

Self-disclosure was a hard concept to code, therefore, the study took a simple approach - seeing if they do or do not self-disclose. Another level was added for exceptional self- disclosure that undoubtedly breaches self-privacy - major self disclosure.

● 13/04/2019

Added codes for lack of toxicity and self-disclosure

The code self-preservation was added for convenience of seeing trends in the sample, where users tend to not reveal any private information. Opposite of minor/major self-disclosure.

The code civil-discourse was also added for convenience. This code allowed us to better highlight in which scenario users were able to communicate their discontent without being toxic. - opposite of any code in the toxicity code-group.

● 25/04/2019

Sample size decision

Initially, the sample was supposed to be bigger, however, the analysis of the sample N=133 yielded exhaustive results and very clear trends between samples. Therefore, taking that into account and the scope of the current research, the decision was made to keep the sample at N=133, and focus on the rest of the paper.

● 01/05/2019

Making sense of unpredicted results

The analysis yielded very strongly noticeable trends between different sample groups (anonymous, pseudonymous and identified). Self-disclosure was predicted to be high with anonymous users, however this was not the case. To make sense of the unpredicted results that would also make sense in the context of prior studies on the topic, we suggested a new definition for self-disclosure - transparency. This concept perfectly fits in the current paradigm and explains why anonymous people did not minorly or majorly self-disclosure. Because

anonymous people did convey as much, if not more information regarding gillettes advertisement as other groups. Logicly, they were more transparent about their opinions rooted in sexism, racism and other bigotry. Anonymous users achieved self-disclosure not through private information revealing, but by transparent communication, which allowed me to see transparently, what type of people they are and what they believe, as opposed to identified or even pseudonymous user groups, who supposedly create their online identities and used real life references, rather than emotions, to support their arguments.