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Cannabis (Sub)Culture, the Subcultural Repository, and Networked Mediation

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SIMULATED SESSIONS: CANNABIS (SUB)CULTURE, THE SUBCULTURAL REPOSITORY, AND NETWORKED MEDIATION Nathan J. Micinski A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2014 Committee: Ellen Berry, Advisor Rob Sloane © 2014 Nathan Micinski All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Ellen Berry, Advisor Subcultural theory is traditionally rooted in notions of social deviance or resistance. The criteria for determining who or what qualifies as subcultures, and the most effective ways to study them, are based on these assumptions. This project seeks to address these traditional modes of studying subcultures and discover ways in which their modification may lead to new understandings and ways of studying subcultures in the contemporary moment. This will be done by suggesting a change in the criteria of examining subcultures from that of deviance or resistance to identification with a collection of images, symbols, rituals, and narratives. The importance of this distinction is the ability to utilize the insights that studying subcultures can offer while avoiding the faults inherent in speaking for or at a subculture rather than with or from it. Beyond addressing theoretical concerns, this thesis aims to apply notions of subcultural theory to study the online community of Reddit, in particular, a subset known as r/trees–a virtual repository for those images, symbols, rituals, and narratives of cannabis subculture. R/trees illustrates the life and vibrancy of a unique subcultural entity, which to this point has evaded a cultural studies analysis. To that end, this project advocates for the importance of the cultural studies approach to analyzing cannabis subculture and further, to insert the findings of this study into that gap in the literature. This thesis will demonstrate both the relevance of this cultural studies approach, in addition to revealing how this study and its subject, r/trees, are reflective of an engaged cultural studies. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my thesis committee for their support, feedback, and absolute positivity during this project. To Rob Sloane, for innumerable discussions over lunch, helping me to develop, shape, and hone this project from its very beginning. To Dr. Ellen Berry, for unfailing encouragement of my most passionate academic pursuits. I would also like to give my sincerest thanks to Debbie Ribera, the sounding board for this entire project, my inspiration to consider and reconsider my fundamental assertions, and the only person who seems to know this project better than I. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION .... ........................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1: THE NEED................................................................................................... 9 Part 1 – Intellectual Work vs. Academic Work ........................................................ 9 Part 2 – Who is Talking About Cannabis?................................................................ 19 Review of Current Literature – A History of Cannabis Culture Neglect . ... 21 CHAPTER 2: SUBCULTURAL FOUNDATIONS............................................................ 31 Why Subcultural Theory?......................................................................................... 31 Using Subcultural Theory: Informing a Discussion of Cannabis Culture ................ 32 The Normalization Thesis: Addressing the “Mainstream” and Social Acceptance . 39 A Redefinition of Subculture.................................................................................... 44 CHAPTER 3: A CASE STUDY OF REDDIT.................................................................... 52 The Communities of Reddit...................................................................................... 53 Subreddits ..................................................................................................... 54 r/trees: Reddit as a Repository .................................................................................. 57 The Subcultural Repository: The Process of Uploading and Downloading............. 59 Uploading...................................................................................................... 60 Downloading................................................................................................. 65 The Cannabis Culture: The Democracy of Authenticity........................................... 67 Handling the Imbalance – The Screening Process........................................ 70 CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................................... 74 Networked Mediation: Engaged Cultural Studies .................................................... 75 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 81 1 INTRODUCTION I smoke cannabis. I haven’t always and I’m not sure I always will. As it stands now, it is a small facet of my life, not consisting of a regular activity, nor one that affects my day to day rhythm. But I have, I still do from time to time, and most importantly, I display a personal affinity in aligning myself with the culture surrounding cannabis. I find its debates both medicinal and legal to be fascinating, I enjoy watching a good “stoner” movie, and I love the music of Bob Marley. Despite this, I have a hard time writing those words to this page. Aside from risks I feel in admitting it I also feel the weight of stigma still attached to the culture. Trends have pushed cannabis towards social acceptance, however users such as myself still find themselves with lingering feelings of social deviance, of being outcasts, rebels, the rule breakers. I say all this is order to place myself squarely in the center of the material that I will be discussing in the following pages. My motivation to begin this study was sparked by my own mixed emotions of desire to associate with a culture while simultaneously feeling discouraged from doing so. I began seeking out research and scholarship that would help to describe these feelings as well as the nature and status of the culture itself. This led me to classic works on subcultural theory and their emphasis on drug cultures and also to more recent sociological works on the status of drug abuse in the country. It became clear to me early on that hardly any of these works focused on cannabis culture exclusively, and more so, that no scholar, author, or researcher was personally associating themselves with it. In this way, my personal associations with cannabis culture inspired me to want to explore and document a part of my own life from the inside out. 2 The cannabis culture that I describe myself as associating with is certainly not a homogeneous one. While the underlying facet of unification is obviously consumption of cannabis, in one form or another, there is still an incredible amount of variety amongst members of this subculture. It is safe to assume that many users do not personally identify as a member of the subculture at all because it is (seemingly) so loosely organized with varying degrees of use and a wide range of motivations for that use. These motivations include, but are certainly not limited to, medical reasons, legalization activism, or simply for pleasure. Despite the diversity inherent in such a wide ranging (sub)culture, particular images certainly come to mind when thinking of a unified "cannabis culture." Most likely, these have to do with stereotypes of the typical "stoner": someone who wears loose, flowing clothing, maybe has unkempt hair or dreadlocks, lacks motivation and drive in life, and smokes away all his days while listening to the music of Bob Marley. This image, while stereotypical, certainly persists and exists as a way to participate in the cannabis (sub)culture, though not the only one. My research is informed by a diverse scope of cannabis users, from suburban parents, to medical doctors, to students and scholars, to well-established and highly functioning professionals. As will become a major crux of my argument in the analysis to come, these wide-ranging ways to participate in the cannabis (sub)culture all have equal potential to be valid, so long as the individual identifying with an image of a subculture chooses to do so. Granted, this does not occur in the absence of heated debate over what should constitute the genuine and authentic nature of any particular subculture, but in the case of cannabis culture, an established collection of symbols, images, and narratives are available for identification with. Exploring the ways in which these symbols, images, and narratives are created, preserved, and applied to individuals' lives is a central goal of this project. 3 Beyond associating myself with this (for now) loosely defined cannabis culture, I also associate myself with being a cultural studies scholar. As such, I hope to produce work that is in the spirit of the academic discipline in which I’ve found a home. To that end, I strive to acknowledge my own positionality in regard to the subject material present in this work. I do not deny my personal relation to the content that will fill the pages to come in the hopes that it will provide a sense of honesty, disclosure, and legitimacy to the claims that I make. In fact, this is of the utmost importance to me as a scholar, intellectual, and academic. As
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