How Gender Fluidity in Rap Is Restructuring the Conversation

Home , Jeffery (mixtape), Young Thug

From Transgression to Transformation:

How Gender Fluidity in Rap is Restructuring the Conversation

A thesis presented to the faculty of

the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University

In partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree

Master of Arts

Franchesca R. Rife

April 2021

This thesis titled

From Transgression to Transformation: How Gender Fluidity in Rap is Restructuring the

Conversation

FRANCHESCA R. RIFE

has been approved for

the Sociology and Anthropology Department

and the College of Arts and Sciences by

Howard T. Welser

Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology

Florenz Plassmann

Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

Abstract

RIFE, FRANCHESCA R., M.A., April 2021, Master of Arts in Sociology

From Transgression to Transformation: How Gender Fluidity in Rap is Restructuring the

Conversation

Director of Thesis: Howard T. Welser

Any time a high-profile person transgresses gender norms through dress it calls into question the naturalness of the gender binary, but rappers are a special case due to perceptions of them being hypermasculine which are held by both the general public and their fan bases. Increasingly, African American male rappers have made public appearances wearing items typically associated with female gender roles such as skirts, dresses, and purses. Their choices contradict hypermasculine perceptions of rap artists and have elicited a variety of responses from the public on social media sites. Gender theorists remind us that gender is enacted and re-negotiated through performance and social interaction (West & Zimmerman, 1987; Butler, 1988). Given the performative nature of gender and celebrity status, the transgressive gender performances of male rapper’s raise important questions about how people can renegotiate the boundaries of inequalities in the gendered social order.

This research study consists of a two-pronged analysis of the content and structure of online conversations where people react to these rapper’s gender performances on

Twitter as well as an analysis of data collected from Wikipedia. These online conversations document the current and contested state of the gendered social order within the musical genre and in society at large. Initially, the conceptual relationships

4 between different rappers and ideas about gender are examined using social network analysis to visualize the links that are present between the Wikipedia pages of rappers and

Wikipedia pages belonging to gender-related terms. Additionally, comparisons within the

Wikipedia context reveal how wide-spread understandings of what is relevant to artists may be different based on what was linked to artist’s pages. Following insights from this analysis, both content analysis and social network analysis are used to study conversations on Twitter. These conversations relate to specific acts of gender transgressions by musical artists which are analyzed as case studies. Within these case studies, particularly pivotal instances of musical artists transgressing masculine gender norms are visualized and then compared to each other, including rap artist Young Thug’s

Jeffery album cover and Harry Styles’ Vogue Magazine cover.

Comparisons between cases of gender transgressive performances allow for the process of interaction around these gender performances within the social media context to be studied. A combination of the structure of Twitter interactions, the content of conversations, and account popularity are examined. Through these methods, instances where people draw attention to the changing nature of gender performances by male rappers and the influence of race on the perceptions of these performances are interrogated. Because Twitter is a context where news is not only disseminated but also where people can react to each other, this makes it an ideal platform through which to observe shifts to the gendered social. Analyzing these reactions is an optimal avenue through which to analyze shifts to the gendered social order because these reactions,

5 particularly the most pervasive ones, underscore the shifting acceptance of gender performance transgressions.

This method of analysis is not without its limitations. For example, comparisons among case studies in which Twitter users are reacting to the gender performances of a wide variety of artists make it difficult to draw definitive conclusions about which factors could be influencing the stances of users due to the numerous differences between these artists’ identities and their fan bases. However, from this analysis, it is clear that race factors into how users respond to these transgressive gender performances. In the case of

Young Thug, users had a tendency to draw connections between him wearing women’s clothing and his sexuality, implying that he was secretly homosexual, more often than in cases of white rap and popular musical artists. Other findings include the general tendency of users to conflate these kinds of gender transgressions with transgender gender identities and the use of hypermasculine characteristics to reaffirm the masculine identities of rap artists after they have worn traditionally feminine clothing. Collectively, these analyses reveal that Twitter serves as an important platform through which users can critically evaluate and negotiate these gender performances and how they relate to ideas of gender and race. This finding suggests that these performances and the conversations that they generate could serve as important gateways to transforming racialized binary expectations of gender and ultimately to assisting in dismantling the current and unequal binary gender social order.

Table of Contents

Page

Abstract ...... 3 List of Tables ...... 7 List of Figures ...... 8 From Transgression to Transformation: How Gender Fluidity in Rap is Restructuring the Conversation ...... 9 From the Culture of Social Media to Rap’s Subversive History: A Review of the Relevant Literature ...... 13 The Significance of Links on Wikipedia ...... 13 Twitter’s Environment as An Important Space for Navigating Complex Issues ...... 16 Using Gender and Intersectional Theories to Interpret the Significance of Rappers Transgressing Gender Norms ...... 18 How Gender Performativity in Drag Kinging Highlights the Non-Naturalness of The Binary ...... 25 Current Understandings of Gender’s Role in the Rap Genre ...... 27 Hip Hop’s Oppositional History ...... 30 Methodology: Using NodeXL to Create and Analyze Sociograms ...... 34 Mapping Links Between Pages on Wikipedia ...... 34 Creating Conversation Networks Using Twitter Data ...... 37 Methodological Considerations ...... 40 Data Analysis of Sociograms from Wikipedia and Twitter ...... 42 Young Thug: Brokering Gender Reflexivity Across Musical and Cultural Space ..... 42 Data Analysis of the Content Structure of Conversations on Twitter ...... 51 Discussing Differential Responses to Artists’ Gender Transgressions...... 86 The Significance of Twitter and Wikipedia Network Analyses ...... 93 References ...... 95

List of Tables

Page

Table 1 Measures of Centrality for Vertices in the Rap Artists’ Wiki Network ...... 49 Table 2 Measures of Centrality for Vertices in the Non-Rap Artists’ Wiki Network ..... 50 Table 3 African American Rap Artist Word Sentiments in Tweets ...... 65 Table 4 Words Present in Twitter Conversations About Rap Artists ...... 66 Table 5 White Non-Rap Artists Word Sentiments in Tweets ...... 66 Table 6 Words Present in Twitter Conversations About Non-Rap Artists ...... 67

List of Figures

Page

Figure 1. Initial Graph Depicting the Links Among Rap Artists’ and Gender Pages ...... 43 Figure 2. Links Among Rap Artists and Gender Pages Filtered by Page Rank ...... 45 Figure 3. Links Among White Non-Rap Artists and Gender Related Pages Filtered by Page Rank ...... 47 Figure 4. Initial Twitter Sociogram Generated using Search Terms “Young Thug” and “Dress”...... 53 Figure 5. Sociogram Generated After Young Thug’s Transphobic Tweet ...... 55 Figure 6. Thotimus_primee Isolated Cluster with Tweet Description...... 56 Figure 7. Celibatespice Isolated Cluster with Tweet Description...... 57 Figure 8. Finessence_ and Zerosuitassley Isolated Clusters with Tweet Descriptions ..... 58 Figure 9. 1kwooty and Ahmad_1994k Cluster with Tweet Description ...... 59 Figure 10. Twitter Network Related to Machine Gun Kelly and His VMA Outfit ...... 62 Figure 11. “Harry Styles Dress” Network filtered to 413 Retweets ...... 69 Figure 12. Unfiltered Network Depicting Harry Styles’ Account as the Highlighted Vertex ...... 70 Figure 13. Harry Styles Account in Retweet Filtered Network ...... 71 Figure 14. Isolated Cluster Containing Canyonmoonblu Vertex within Retweet Filtered Network...... 73 Figure 15. Network Filtered by Retweet Size Highlighting Hsdaily’s Tweet ...... 74 Figure 16. Network Filtered by Retweet Size Highlighting Updatehld’s Tweet ...... 76 Figure 17. Network Filtered by Retweet Size Highlighting Tweet from Realcandaceo .. 77 Figure 18. Unfiltered Graph Visualizing Accounts within “Harry Styles Young Thug” Network...... 79 Figure 19. Network Filtered by Retweet Size Incognitolam’s Account ...... 80 Figure 20. Tweet from Account Ingonitolam ...... 81 Figure 21. Network Filtered by Retweet Size Highlighting Jrwave19 and Incognitolam’s Accounts ...... 82 Figure 22. Tweet from Account jrwave19 ...... 83 Figure 23. Network Filtered by Retweet Size Highlighting Snootid’s Twitter Account .. 84

From Transgression to Transformation: How Gender Fluidity in Rap is

Restructuring the Conversation

A tall slender man faces sideways wearing a crisp white long sleeve shirt. A layered periwinkle skirt billows down his legs standing in stark contrast to the bright white background. Each of his wrists bear two silver chain bracelets positioned below his elbows which are wrapped in ribbons of delicate purple fabric. He reaches one hand up to hold the front of an umbrella-shaped hat that conceals all of his face and head but for a few dreadlocks. This man’s name is Jeffery Lamar Williams, more commonly known by his rap moniker, Young Thug. While this image may seem insignificant by description, when it appeared on the cover of Thug’s 2016 mixtape, Jeffery, it generated a plethora of controversy with GQ Magazine deeming it “A Troll for the Ages” (Fenner, 2017), but perhaps this instance of showcasing atypical fashion was more powerful than mere trolling.

While Young Thug was not the first hip hop artist to wear unconventionally feminine clothing, his mixtape cover art was undeniably impactful, swinging the door open for more artists to continue to push the boundaries of rap fashion. In recent years, several rappers have begun to wear what would traditionally be considered feminine items of clothing including purses, dresses, and crop tops. The importance of this phenomenon lies largely within its contradictions to expectations within the genre.

The rap musical genre is rooted deeply in African American culture which has been known to have high levels of religiosity (Taylor & Chatters, 2010) and be depicted as rigidly hypermasculine in popular culture (Hopkinson & Moore, 2006; Abu-Hazeem,

2017; Zlatko, 2019). Against this cultural backdrop, the increasing prevalence of these gender performances when enacted by African American rap artists could suggest a meaningful cultural shift. White male pop and rap artists also often push the envelope of gendered expectations when it comes to dress but given the more widespread acceptance and depiction of multiple white masculinities, these performances may not be as significant. These gender performances are also occurring within the context of modern- day social networking sites and are often subjects of contentious conversation on one of modern-day’s infamously toxic platforms, Twitter (Salehabadi, 2019). By studying the conversations taking place on Twitter surrounding these performances, we can attempt to make sense of how acceptable presentations of gender could be shifting. These high- profile gender transgressions witnessed by such large audiences not only have the potential to normalize traditionally deviant presentations of masculinity, but by observing them through a theoretical gender lens, it becomes clear that they may also have the power to assist in the subversion of the unequal gender binary.

This phenomenon in relation to social media brings up interesting questions about the connections the public makes between artists and gender as well as the kinds of conversations that are taking place surrounding these instances of gender-norm transgression. Is the public making connections between musical artists and the idea of gender? If so, are these connections being drawn differently based on the race, genre, or history of gender transgressions by the artists in question? Differences in how connections are drawn based on these factors could reflect that people may interpret individual actions of some artists as being part of their identity or reputation while not

11 interpreting these actions in the same way for other artists. In order to answer these questions concerning the conceptual connections of different artists to the ideas of gender, the network structure of links among Wikipedia pages related to these topics are analyzed.

Another critical question concerning the power of these gender transgressions pertains to how the conversations on Twitter about these non-normative gender performances are structured. What kinds of users are most central to these conversations?

And what are the most pervasive views being presented? The structure and content of these conversations on Twitter are analyzed by using the software NodeXL to generate sociograms depicting prominent Tweets in these conversations and interactions with them. Answering these questions through these methods will allow for a better understanding of the current opinions and stances being taken concerning these gender transgressions. Additionally, examining how users may have a tendency to view these transgressions differently based on the race or genre of musical artists can shed light onto how these factors influence the transformative potential of the performances.

The preceding questions are especially important to ask because their answers could allow for a better understanding of the subversive potential of these gender norm transgressions to affect the views of individuals and the hierarchical organization of the binary as a whole. This sort of multi-method analysis also highlights the importance of intertwining content and social network analysis in studies of social media because to analyze all the Tweets in these networks as if they are equally pervasive, would be inaccurate. Finally, like social networks in real life, these online social networks can act

12 as socializing forces, so the more popular views being expressed not only reflect the positions of some users, but they are also likely informing users’ overall ideologies concerning the intersections of race and gender and the perceived biological innateness of gender.

From the Culture of Social Media to Rap’s Subversive History: A Review of the

Relevant Literature

When Young Thug’s mixtape was released, his gender transgression and the plethora of conversation it generated on Twitter were shocking. This kind of high-profile gender transgression by a rapper had never happened during a time when Twitter could act as a social media context where these actions could be reverberated. Correspondingly, academic researchers have not yet directly studied gender transgressions by rap artists.

However, researchers have studied issues on the edge of this phenomenon. The main contributions of the existing literature will help us understand the contexts in which these transgressions are studied (Wikipedia and Twitter) and the theoretical frameworks of intersectionality and theories of gender as performance which will be useful to fully understanding these transgressions. Research concerning different representations of gender within the genre and the genre’s subversive potential is also usefule when considering the importance of the phenomenon and this research. Collectively, an examination of the previous research in these subject areas serves to inform and frame the importance of a systematic inquiry into responses to men wearing traditionally feminine clothing in the music industry.

The Significance of Links on Wikipedia

While Wikipedia is well known for being the site your teachers warned you about obtaining unreliable information from, previous research indicates that the site's editors are diligent in editing out false information and take their responsibilities seriously. In order to understand the significance of Wikipedia links, it is important to understand the

14 editing process, as this process is iterative, and editors are constantly looking to add or remove links from pages that they believe would increase the accuracy of the information on the page. By leaving certain links on Wiki pages, the editors are passively confirming that they believe the link between two topics to be substantiated. The website being openly sourced, which is often seen as a draw-back to cautious academics, is actually its strength in this case because the content of pages reflects more than just the stances of a single author.

Individuals who edit Wikipedia work collectively as a community to edit pages.

This leads to the site as a whole functioning to socially construct knowledge through the consensus of its editors (Bilić, 2015). Because Wikipedia editors do not get paid to edit the pages and receive little public recognition, much research has aimed at identifying what motivates these editors. A 2005 study found that editors become more deeply entrenched in the collaborative editing as “experts” because they are concerned with the quality and accuracy of Wikipedia overall and feel personally responsible for the quality of their contribution (Bryant et al.). Other research has shown that Wiki editors edit because they want to produce factually accurate information much like scientists. Well- versed researchers in the area of Wikipedia, Forte and Bruckman found that "like scientists, contributors to Wikipedia seek to collaboratively identify and publish true facts about the world” (2005, p. 1). They explained that because editors on Wikipedia do not receive credit for their work in a straightforward way, it makes sense that what is motivating them is the pursuit of factual accuracy and peer recognition (Forte &

Bruckman, 2005). Additionally, a 2010 survey completed by 54,034 Wikipedia

15 contributors revealed that the majority of respondents were motivated to contribute by their desire to share knowledge (72.91%) and wish to fix errors on the site (68.78%)

(Glott et al.). The research conducted on the motivations of Wikipedia editors reveals that the collaborative and behind-the-scenes nature of the editing process lends itself to editors being driven to present the most factually accurate information possible on Wiki pages.

Because Wikipedia pages are edited individually, one may wonder how exactly a collaborative environment could exist on the site and how this environment could be a useful tool in improving the accuracy of Wikipedia pages. Previous research has shown that despite Wikipedia having grown significantly in the years since it was formed, the community of editors have consistently been diligent in correcting page vandalism by using the “talk” pages on Wiki pages to strategically plan edits together as well as to maintain and enforce the guidelines of Wikipedia (Viégas et al., 2007). The openness of this collaborative forum lends itself to preserving the accuracy of information on pages with a 2008 analysis of the information quality practices of Wikipedia concluding that the openness of the process and the data lends itself to error detection and correction in a way that could be useful for ensuring information quality in other, more conventional databases (Stvilia et al., 2008).

While many doubt the accuracy of Wikipedia as a source of information, a case study analysis of the “Featured Article” process revealed to researchers that despite the fact that the public may often view Wikipedia as loosely regulated and often times inaccurate, the article process, while collective, is largely formalized and policy based

(Viégas et al., 2007). Studies have also shown that the more registered users of Wikipedia contribute to pages, the higher the quality of their edits become, which supports the assertion that reputation and community commitment are driving forces behind quality; however, good Samaritans who only contribute once to pages anonymously and without recognition have the highest quality of edits, suggesting that they are driven by wanting to improve the quality of a page focused on an area in which they have a specialized expertise (Anthony et al., 2009). The collaborative nature of Wikipedia not only preserves page accuracy through formalized policies and procedures, but the community created through these collaborative processes also motivates editors to provide the strongest possible edits to receive recognition within the community.

People who edit Wikipedia articles do so systematically and collaboratively. The research shows that they are motivated by factual accuracy and pride in their work, and therefore, by choosing not to edit out links between pages, they are passively affirming that they feel that those links are substantiated. Besides the maintained presence of links reflecting editor consensus, it is also important to note that Wikipedia is a hugely popular site with 40,846,096 registered users (Wikipedia:Statistics) which disseminates information to the general public. This suggests that the links between pages not only reflect passive consensus among editors but that these links are also influencing the views of millions of people.

Twitter’s Environment as An Important Space for Navigating Complex Issues

Twitter is a hugely popular social media site which allows users to post 280- character quips which can be viewed, replied to, and reposted by anyone else on the

17 platform. The site has often been utilized for navigating complex issues, and this positions it to be uniquely useful in promoting conversations about non-normative gender presentations and their meanings. In order to properly analyze Twitter interactions surrounding male artists transgressing masculine gender norms, it is important to have a background understanding of the culture and environment of Twitter.

While Twitter is often regarded as a toxic social media platform, some research findings indicate that the site has many positive attributes. For example, with 200 million people a month positing on the platform, Twitter has been useful in facilitating more open dialog by leveling the playing field though allowing average, everyday people to express their stances without the conventional gatekeepers (Cross, 2011).

However, as previously mentioned, Twitter is often times categorized as facilitating a toxic environment; although, research has shown that when the context of conversations among adolescents on Twitter becomes clearer, these assertions may be overblown

(Wijesiriwardene et al., 2020). On the other hand, contrary findings revealed that toxic

Twitter commentators are more active than commenters who are non-toxic and that this can lead to conversations generally being more negative (Salehabadi, 2019). These findings suggest that while Twitter can be a useful tool in expanding the number of voices being heard, the nature of the content posted there can also be harmful to users.

Previous literature has suggested that posting on Twitter is a process for the site’s users. Some scholars have theorized Twitter as a communicative space with its own shared expectations and norms leading to a new kind of public space, a personal public, which presents information chosen and presented based on individual relevance and

18 shared with a specific audience in mind (Schmidt, 2014). Additional research on the considerations users make when Tweeting supported the assertion that users engage in a process of imagining an audience whom they wish to evoke through their posts on the platform (Marwick & Boyd, 2011). Interestingly, others have proposed studying the platform’s interactions using existing sociological interactional theories (Murthy, 2012).

The way people on Twitter go about posting seems to support the idea that these social networks behave similarly to those in the non-virtual world.

While many users’ Twitter feeds are likely full of jokes and memes, this content does not account for all of the subject matter shared on the site. Twitter also has a history of being a useful avenue through which users can discuss and navigate gender issues including gender in sports culture and rape culture (Sanderson & Gramlich, 2016;

Stubbs-Richardson et al., 2018). The #MeToo movement is another poignant example of gendered issues being navigated through the site (Hosterman et al., 2018). While Twitter may be a place in which certain unsavory voices are sometimes the loudest, its conversational interface allows for users to navigate important and complex issues which makes it a valuable venue through which to study responses to male musical artists non- normative gender performances.

Using Gender and Intersectional Theories to Interpret the Significance of Rappers

Transgressing Gender Norms

In order to better understand the significance of male rappers wearing traditionally feminine clothing, a background understanding of gender and intersectional theories is necessary. These theories can provide a lens through which to view these norm

19 transgressions that allows us to see the social constructions and power dynamics at play.

For example, proponents of biological determinism understand gender as being something that is inherently biological and a direct product of biological sex (Mikkola,

2019). However, within the past few decades, gender theorists have challenged this notion by proposing the idea that gender is something that is socially constructed performed. This is now how the overwhelming majority of theorists in the field have come to conceptualize gender. Understanding gender as an institution and as a performance (Acker, 1992) can be useful in observing the transgressions of gender norms by African American rap artists; it can also help us frame the importance of the phenomenon.

In their widely-cited article, “Doing Gender,” Candace West and Don

Zimmerman establish the idea that gender is something that is repeatedly accomplished in everyday interactions and is something that must be done rather than something that is naturally part of people (1987). The authors also make clear a distinction between the concepts of sex, sex category, and gender. Expanding on the idea of “doing” gender,

Judith Butler proposed that gender is something that is created through bodily performances (1988). In addition, she explained that because gender is based solely on performance, people can change their performances at any time, but people perform gender in line with the binary expectations that they believe others have for them.

The idea of gender expectations in performance became known as accountability and was expanded upon by many theorists and researchers (Schwalbe, 2000; West &

Fenstermaker, 2002; Shwalbe, 2005; West & Zimmerman, 2009; Cook, 2006). While the

20 meaning of the term “accountability” has been given a variety of meanings in discussions of gender performances, Jocelyn Hollander does an excellent job of synthesizing previous conceptions of gender accountability in her article titled “’I Demand More of People’:

Accountability, Interaction, and Gender Change” (2013). Hollander explains that in their everyday interactions, people perform gender in line with how they think those that they’re interacting with expect them to perform. People base these assumptions of others’ expectations on the identities of the person(s) being interacted with. People act in line with these perceived assumptions for fear of being socially reprimanded or “called into account” for nonconforming performances.

Much of the discussion concerning gender’s performance has centered on face-to- face interactions as the environment which performance occurs. However, Cecelia

Ridgeway in her work with Shelly Correll and Tamar Kricheli-Katz has discussed gender’s performance as occurring in “social relational contexts” which are any setting where people must take into account how others will respond to their actions when deciding how to act (2013). Much of the work on gender’s performance has also proposed that gender performance can serve as a way to undermine the current and unequal gendered social order (Hollander, 2013; Ridgeway and Kricheli-Katz, 2013;

Corwin, 2017). In these works, Hollander and others have explained that by doing gender in ways that are not in line with others’ accounts, the assumed naturalness of binary characteristics can be called into question by those observing gender being done in these transgressive ways. Some theorists have specifically zeroed in on this idea calling it

“undoing gender” (Lorber 2000; Deutsch 2007). Taken together, these works give us a better understanding of gender’s performativity and its transformative potential.

The way that gender theorists have conceptualized masculinity as being organized hegemonically is also useful to the current investigation into the transgressive gender performances of male musical artists. Hegemonic masculinity can be defined as, “a type of man, idealized by men and women alike, who functions to justify and naturalize gender inequality” (Wade & Ferree, 2015, p. 124). This ideal masculinity has been described as “white, monied, and self-possessed” (Schrock & Schwalbe, 2009, p. 284).

Wade and Ferree explain that the existence of hegemonic masculinity and the failure of many men to meet this ideal leads to a hierarchy of men in which characteristics not considered to be in line with the hegemonic ideal, often due to them being perceived as feminine traits, are devalued and positioned lower on the hierarchy (2015, p. 125).

Due to the ideal hegemonic masculinity being white, individuals of other races are unable to achieve this idea. Specifically, Black men are positioned lower within this hierarchy due to their non-white race and them being perceived as too manly (Wade &

Ferree, 2015, p. 125). Considering hegemonic masculinity and its implicit hierarchy can inform the study of responses to African American rappers transgressing masculine gender norms because it makes clear that Black men and feminine performances by men are subordinated within the hierarchy. It is interesting that African American rappers would choose to perform femininity through dress so openly when these performances by men are viewed as less valuable in a society typified by hegemonic masculinity. One particularly relevant article has highlighted how African American pop artist Prince’s

22 non-normative gender performances acted to subvert hegemonic Black masculinity by showcasing “the complexity of Blackness, masculinity, and their cultural intersections”

(Whiteneir, 2019). Regardless of their motivations in performing gender in this way, this statement underscores the radical power that these artists’ gender performances can have in transforming normative understandings of Blackness, hegemonic masculinity, and how they intersect.

Performativity and hegemony are useful theoretical frameworks through which we can observe instances in which male rappers and other musical artists dress in traditionally feminine clothing. First, we can now conceptualize these instances as performances of gender. These are gender performances because they are occurring in social relational contexts in which the artists are influenced by the perceptions of others and involve gendered presentations of self. Also, this theoretical background serves to expand on the importance of this phenomenon because it presents the idea that these performances, which are not in-line with binary gendered expectations, could serve to bring attention to the presence of multiple Black masculinities and at the same time undermine the current and unequal gendered social order. Starting with an understanding of gender theorists’ ideas of performance and hegemony leaves us better prepared to interpret this phenomenon and to better understand its importance.

The artists that this research focuses on have multiple social identities that intersect at the same time. While all are male, they have different racial identities and different levels of popularity (i.e., status). All of these identities exist within systems of inequality and likely act to inform how these artists perform gender and how people

23 respond to their transgressive gender performances. For example, because people perceive these artists as wealthy, they may grant them more leeway in how they perform gender outside of binary expectations. Because rappers have these multiple and interacting identities, it is important to understand the concept of intersectionality which, in addition to understanding gender’s performativity, is useful in better analyzing these performances.

Many credit the coining of the term “intersectionality” to Kimberle Crenshaw in her 1989 article in which she offered a critique of white feminism and put forth the idea that race and gender were not mutually exclusive categories (p. 139). She goes on to explain that both racism and sexism inform the experiences and inequalities that Black women must endure in their lives. Other theorists have since expanded on how intersectionality relates to Black feminism (Cooper, 2018). Patricia Hill Collins and

Sirma Bilge criticize the idea that people often credit Crenshaw with the term because they fail to fully grasp the concept and do not acknowledge that various waves of oppressed women had utilized intersectionality before Crenshaw named it (2016). They define intersectionality as an analytic tool that accounts for the various axes of inequality that work together, influence, and mutually construct each other (p. 2). They also stress the importance of understanding intersectionality not just as differing demographic characteristics but rather as the systems of domination inherent in those characteristics.

For example, the existence of the category race implies racism, and it is important to elaborate on that when using intersectionality as an analytic framework (p. 201).

Related to the concept of intersectionality, is Collins’ idea of the matrix of domination which is a paradigm that sees characteristics pertaining to inequality as overlapping and informing an individual’s place within our unequal society (2000). In addition to understanding that gender and race are not mutually exclusive, theorists have expanded the idea of intersectionality to include social class (Acker, 2006; Penner &

Saperstein, 2013; Reid & Tom, 2006). A previously mentioned article written by Cecelia

Ridgeway and Tamar Kricheli-Katz analyzes how race, class, and gender combine and interact with one another in different social situations to affect others’ behavioral expectations and grant either binds (disadvantages) or freedoms (advantages) to individuals (2013). Scholars have also looked at how age (Steffensmeier et al., 2017) nation (Collins, 1998), physical ability (Naples et al., 2019), and many other social identities salient to system of privilege and oppression are important to intersectional analyses. Intersectionality as an analytic framework has been used to study a variety of topics ranging from domestic violence (Crenshaw, 1991) to the relationships of young, male, Black college students (Wilkins, 2012) offering fruitful results that effectively consider the systems of inequality that are at play in the lives of the individuals being studied.

Intersectionality has shown to be an important analytic framework and is useful in studying the gender performances of Black male rappers because it allows for the complexity of the various systems of oppression at play to be understood.

Intersectionality not only lends insight into the identities of these rappers but is also useful in analyzing how people respond to their gender performances. An investigation

25 into this phenomenon will make connections between these identities and reactions and systems of domination and inequality in society. For example, the expectations that people have for the gender performances of Black men are likely rooted in our nation’s history of slavery and legalized racism. It is pertinent that the findings of this study make connections back to systems of domination or they would be undermining the complexity of the life experiences of these men.

How Gender Performativity in Drag Kinging Highlights the Non-Naturalness of The

Binary

Drag kinging consists of masculine performances by women and while it may seem counterintuitive to discuss this topic in a study about the feminine gender performances of men, findings from research on drag kinging can help inform the study of male rappers transgressing gender norms. The campy and mainstream nature now associated with drag queen performances makes research on that topic a less ideal avenue to pursue when examining the power of gender performativity, and for this reason, I have chosen to focus this discussion on drag kinging rather than queening. By understanding the importance of drag king performances, the importance of studying male rappers’ transgressive gender performances can also be better understood.

Many theorists have studied drag and its subversive nature. In his groundbreaking book, Jack Halberstam proposed that drag king performances not only brought attention to the performative nature of masculinity but also acted to highlight the unnaturalness and ridiculousness of misogyny (1998, p. 30). Since then, other gender scholars have shown how drag kinging brings attention to the performative nature of gender and, therefore,

26 works to undermine the gender binary which positions women and feminine characteristics as less valuable than men and male characteristics (Surkan, 2002; Hanson,

2007; Baker & Kelly, 2016). Julie Hanson’s 2007 article did this and also placed an emphasis on the importance of clothing as “symbolic content” which can be easily recognized as male in drag king performances (p. 97). Baker and Kelly found in their study of southern drag kings that kings’ challenges to the binary were “an important part of the puzzle to overcoming the gender hierarchy in our society” (2016, p. 62). Scholars have shown how drag king performances can also bring to light the construction of gender as it relates to race (Piontek, 2003).

Beyond affecting societal perceptions, researchers have also shown how drag king performances can influence how performers understand and navigate their own gender identities (Shapiro, 2007; Tufail, 2009; Berbary & Johnson, 2017; Rogers, 2018). For example, Shapiro found that the drag troop Disposable Boy Toys acted as a venue for performers to be able to play with, interrogate, and sometimes adopt new gender performances (2007, p. 250) These performances have also had important implications for audiences by providing a safe space where a variety of genders and sexualities can be explored and celebrated (Patterson, 2002). By facilitating these expressions of self in other individuals, these spaces are helping to further undermine the binary. This research on drag kinging shows how women performing gender in masculine ways can be transformative to the current and unequal gendered social order.

Previous scholars have shown that drag kinging challenges binary assumptions of gender by bringing attention to gender’s performativity. The feminine gender

27 performances by male rappers highlight the unnaturalness of the gender binary and emphasize gender’s performativity in a similar way. The feminine clothing they wear is instantly recognized as symbolic content of being feminine and lesser, but it is worn by powerful men which calls into question this assumption. Additionally, just as drag kinging creates an environment in which those viewing the gender performances feel more comfortable to explore a variety of different sexualities and genders, gender transgressions by rappers, could be doing the same thing on an even larger scale. The research on drag kinging helps frame the importance of studying male rappers’ transgressive gender performances because it highlights their potential to subvert the current gendered social order.

Current Understandings of Gender’s Role in the Rap Genre

Previous research on rap and gender is not easy to come by but has included both performances of femininity and masculinity. Performances and representations of masculinity have been shown to have both positive and negative effects on listeners while women’s participation in the genre has largely been framed as positive by researchers.

Previous studies have largely focused on rap lyrics and music videos as avenues for studying the genre and its representations of gender. Scholars have also not often taken into account theoretical ideas about gender’s performativity when studying rap. It is important to understand previous research conducted on this topic in order to understand how the current research will expand upon the literature and offer new and important insights.

While studies on both masculinity and femininity in rap have been conducted, there is collectively only a small body of work that examines the topic. Some researchers have found that presentations of hypermasculinity in rap can be negative and have negative effects on listeners (Cobb & Boettcher, 2007; Chung, 2007; Balaji, 2009;

Hunter, 2011; Djupvik, 2014). For example, Jamison found that listening to rap distorted perceptions of masculinity for young Black men (2006). This research, taken together, shows that hypermasculinity involving violence and the over-sexualization of women is present throughout rap music.

However not all research on masculinity and rap music has shown negative effects (Berry, 1990; Oware, 2010; Berggren, 2013). For example, Berry found that the male-dominated music helped young Black men form stable self-concepts and cope with their realities (1990). In the same study where Jamison found that perceptions of masculinity were narrowed for listeners, he also found that listening to rap music was related to higher levels of African Self-Consciousness (2006). In his study of male rap lyrics, Oware found that ideas of masculinity in rap needed to be expanded upon to include the positive representations of homosocial relationships (platonic friendships) between men (2010). Research on women in rap music has been conducted even less frequently than research on masculinity in the genre. The research that exists has largely shown that women who participate in rap music have positive experiences. For example,

Lane found that artists like Missy Elliott have worked within the genre to redefine masculinity and femininity in ways that destabilize the system of gender domination

(2011). Jessica Nydia Pabón-Colón is one of the most prominent scholars studying hip-

29 hop and women and has found that women’s participation in the genre can lead to empowerment through rap performances (2017) and to the remodeling of masculinity for women (2018). Collectively, this body of research can act to frame the importance of a study examining male rappers transgressing masculine gender norms because it highlights how different presentations of gender within the genre could use expanding upon.

The current investigation analyzing responses to male rappers’ transgressive gender performances will expand on the current body of literature and account for what is missing. The research discussed above highlights that Black men generally and Black rappers specifically are subject to expectations of hypermasculinity. That positions these gender performances to be all the more powerful in calling into question the naturalness of gender, particularly regarding how it intersects with race. The gaps in the current literature surrounding gender in hip-hop include a failure to articulate important theoretical connections to scholarly understandings of gender and intersectionality, a lack of acknowledgment of the changing ways that gender is expressed within rap, and a focus on analyses of lyrics and music videos. Research on the transgressive performances of male rappers will, as was explained earlier, be grounded in theories of performativity and intersectionality. By studying these performances, this research also highlights the ways that gender performance in rap is changing and does not only promote stereotypical expressions of hypermasculinity. Finally, while analyses of music videos and lyrics are useful, they fail to account for the power of rappers’ gender performances in their day-to- day lives which this study focuses on. The previous research on rap, highlighted here,

30 will be beneficially expanded upon by research that examines male rappers’ transgressive gender performances.

Hip Hop’s Oppositional History

Beyond gender, hip hop and rap have a history of bringing attention to complex social issues and inequality. This situates the genre as an important avenue for further exploration in terms of its ability to subvert the binary. Despite the genre’s ability to challenge the status quo, discussions of the genre’s role in challenging the current and unequal gender binary are currently absent from the existing body of research surrounding hip hop’s oppositional power. Much of this previous research also focuses on analyses of 90’s era gangsta rap rather than discussing the role that current rap plays in contesting inequality. However, an understanding of the dissentient history of hip hop is useful in framing its potential to shift the public’s perception of acceptable gender presentations.

Several scholars have investigated how rap is subversive in nature and can bring attention to import social issues. For example, a 2006 study used content analysis to examine the frequency and nature of oppositional themes in 20 different rap albums from popular artists released between 1988 and 1992 and revealed that rap has addressed political issues including educational bias, criminal justice, discrimination, and health care inequality in an effort to promote resistance to the cultural and socio-economic domination of African Americans (Beighey & Unnithan). Sociologist, Judith McDonnell has also proposed that rap acted as a “community of resistance” against the oppression of young Black people finding that rap has been useful in promoting political messages

31 through two different categorizations including individualized action and collective action (1992). Concerning specific genre subsets, a 2012 literature review and lyrical analysis of songs from N.W.A’s Straight Outta Compton revealed that through drawing attention to criminality, gangsta rap groups of the past were challenging widely held ideas about race, place, and crime and that this criminality played a role in social transformation (McCann). This emphasis on social transformation is particularly pertinent to the investigation of how non-normative gender performances by rappers can be subversive to the gender social order. However, not all research on the topic only emphasized the positive aspects of rap’s messages. A much earlier study also found that rap is often used as subversive and as a challenge to the current political order but that at the same time “While calling for revolution, too often it epitomizes the racist, sexist, individualist, and materialist tendencies that it rails against” (Lusane, 1993, p. 49).

Beyond merely promoting resistance to domination, a 2009 study showed that exposure to political rap can lead to increased support for Black nationalists among white listeners (Bonnette). This is important given the salient intersectional identities of the rappers in questions and suggests that the genre could also be used to help bring attention to the different expectations people have for gender performances based on race. While the focus here is on the ability of lyrical content to influence listener’s views, this finding is still a testament to the general ability of the genre’s artists to sway the stances of those who consume their media despite them identifying differently racially. The genre’s ability to challenge the status quo is also not limited to the country or culture of the

United States. Hip Hop music and culture have also become important oppositional

32 forces in European countries like Russia where this genre, adopted from the West, is serving to challenge governmental policies and oversight, creating a boisterous subculture (Milosz & Helbig, 2017). Taken together, these findings highlight just how conveniently positioned the genre and its artists are to create transformation in terms of the current and unequal gendered social order.

While much of the literature surrounding hip hop’s oppositional themes and influence centers on a previous era in the genre’s history, this previous research reveals that hip hop is no stranger to challenging the status quo and could be a useful avenue through which to challenge gender performance ideals. Similar to the existing body of research on gender in rap, a great deal of the previous research concerning hip hop’s oppositional history also focuses on lyrical analyses rather than acts of opposition by artists. Expanding this current body of research to include the subversive nature of the gender performances of rappers is paramount.

Examining the work of other scholars will ultimately result in more fruitful findings in research that seeks to explore instances in which male rappers dress in feminine clothing. First, understanding the editing practice of Wikipedia users and the culture of Twitter allows for a more accurate interpretation of the results of analyses on data from these sites. Additionally, gender’s performativity serves as an important theoretical framework for accurately conceptualizing these instances of gender-norm transgression and their importance. Also, by observing these performances and responses to them through an intersectional analysis, I ensure that important connections to systems of domination are made. Examining previous research that has been conducted on drag

33 kinging and rap has helped to highlight the transformative potential of these performances and frame the importance of this research and the contribution it will make to the current body of literature. Finally, knowledge of the genre’s history of subversiveness highlights what a powerful tool it could be in using these gender performances to challenge the current gender status-quo. Research surrounding male rapper’s transgressive gender performances and the public’s responses to them is valuable to scholars in a variety of fields including race and gender studies and would have important implications for sociological theories concerning the performativity of gender, intersectionality, and the power of prominent social figures to affect social discourse. In addition to its scholarly applications, research that answers questions about how these gender transgressions are received and that seeks to determine the state of the current and contested gendered social order would be useful to activists seeking to undermine gender inequality.

Methodology: Using NodeXL to Create and Analyze Sociograms

This research uses a mixed methodological approach to collect and analyze data from Wikipedia and Twitter. The software program NodeXL was used to gather data and to create sociograms (social network maps) from the collected data. In addition to analyses of these graphs, content analysis was also performed on the content of Tweets.

Content analysis is a useful supplement to social network analysis in that it allows for the content of Tweets to be analyzed in relation to their position within these networks.

To begin to study musical artists wearing feminine clothing, it is important to begin by clearly defining feminine clothing and the various genres of music that will be examined.

For this research, feminine items of clothing when worn by men include dresses, skirts, crop tops, jewelry, and purses. A rapper is considered a musical artist classified under the

Rap/Hip Hop genre on Apple Music. The methodological steps taken to collect, prepare, and analyze the data differ slightly between Wikipedia and Twitter.

Mapping Links Between Pages on Wikipedia

As has been inferred from previous research, links between pages on Wikipedia represent that editors believe that there is substantial justification for connecting the linked concepts due to the fact that editors are not removing the links during the editing process. Previous research has also used the presence of hyperlinks among Wikipedia pages to reflect the cultural relevance of certain topics (Welser et al., 2020). Wikipedia also informs the way that those who use it as a source of information connect concepts.

With the English version of the site obtaining an average of over 263 million daily views

35 on its pages, this is no small audience gaining information from the site (Siteviews,

2021).

The aim of the initial Wikipedia analysis was to capture how pages that represent a variety of rappers with ranging public images in regards to their usual gender performances are linked to pages of terms relating to gender. In order to gather data in a systematic way, categorical distinctions were drawn by artist type including (1) rappers who have engaged in public gender transgressions whose Wikipedia pages made mention of these transgressions; (2) rappers who have engaged in public gender transgressions, whose Wikipedia pages make no mention of this transgression; and (3) rappers who have never publicly transgressed masculine gender norms and would likely be considered hypermasculine. From each of these categories, two African American rap artists were selected who seemed to best embody the characteristics outlined in the categorical distinctions. Selecting rap artists from these different categories allowed for the visualization of links among a variety of different rappers and gender pages. This way, it would be clearer if the amount of gender transgression that artists committed related to their conceptual connections to ideas of gender. From the first category of artists whose

Wiki pages made mention of their transgressions, Young Thug and Jaden Smith were selected. From the second category of artists who had transgressed gender norms but whose pages did not mention these transgressions, Pharrell Williams and Lil B were selected. Finally, for the category of rappers who have never transgressed gender norms,

21 Savage and Gucci Mane were selected. Two pages related to gender terms were also selected including the pages for “androgyny” and “nonbinary gender.” These pages were

36 selected because these terms most-closely relate to the acts of gender performance transgression being examined.

Using the program NodeXL a combined sociogram was created in which these pages and all of the pages that link to them were visualized. This means that the links among the initial pages and all of the links present among those pages were visualized.

In order to create this combined sociogram, NodeXL was used to upload data on the inward and outward links for each of these individual pages. Next, this data was copied into Excel for processing where the outward ties were removed through sorting, finding, and deleting them. Outward ties consist of pages linking out from a page rather than those that link to it from another page. This way concepts that were connected to rap artists, rather than from rap artists, could be the focus of analysis. However, for the page of the rapper most known for transgressing gender norms, Young Thug, both inward and outward ties were left in the dataset so that his page’s position and connections could be better visualized. After the data containing links to the individual pages had been processed, it was combined into a single sheet and reuploaded to NodeXL in order to create the combined sociogram. In addition to creating sociograms, NodeXL was also used to formulate data on the centrality of vertices within the sociogram.

Sociograms appear as maps of colored dots, or nodes, which are connected by grey arrows, or edges. Within sociograms mapping connections between Wikipeida pages, the nodes represent Wikipedia pages, and the edges that point from one node to the next present the presence of a hyperlink on the page the edge starts at. This hyperlink, links to the Wikipedia page of the node it points to. Nodes that share the same color are

37 often grouped in the same area of the sociogram as they share connections and absences of connections to other Wikipedia pages in similar ways.

Following the creation of the initial combined sociogram containing rap artist’s pages and gender terms, the same methodological process for page selection was repeated with white non-rap artists. From the category containing artists who have transgressed masculine gender norms and whose Wiki pages make mention of these transgressions,

Harry Styles and David Bowie were selected. For artists who have committed gender norm transgressions, but their pages do not mention it, Marilyn Manson and Justin Bieber were selected. From the category containing artists who have never publicly transgressed masculine gender norms, Zayne Malik and Adam Levine were selected. In addition to these pages, the non-binary gender and androgyny pages were also included again. The previous data processing procedure was repeated in Excel, and this time Harry Styles was the only artist whose outward links were kept, as he is the most well-known for his gender transgressions and would, therefore, be the most useful page to compare to Young

Thug’s page within the previous network. Comparing the network analysis of Wikipedia links from gender-related pages to African American rap artists’ pages with an analysis of links from gender-related pages to white non-rap artists allowed for differences in how people connect ideas of gender to artists based on race and genre to be better understood.

Creating Conversation Networks Using Twitter Data

In addition to generating sociograms using data imported from Wikipedia,

NodeXL was also used to create sociograms from data collected via Twitter. There are various methods through which Twitter data can be collected through the software. For

38 the purposes of this research, the Twitter search network data collection method was used to collect Tweet data. Through this method of data collection, search terms are entered, and every Tweet from the prior two week-period containing those words is retrieved. The sociograms created from this data visualize the accounts that tweeted the search terms and how they are connected to one another through retweets, replies, and mentions which are represented as edges within the networks. Nodes that share the same color within

Twitter sociograms have similar retweet and comment relationships to accounts. As in the Wikipedia networks, these nodes share connections and absences of connections in similar ways. In addition to retrieving the Tweets and their interactions, NodeXL also collects the Tweets themselves. This allows for content analysis of the Tweets to be supplemented by structural analysis of the network.

Content analysis was conducted by first systematically identifying the tweets that were central to networks. Next, the content of these tweets was coded as being positive or negative and patterns among them were identified to generate findings pertaining to the nature of the most pervasive tweets within the various networks. In addition to using

NodeXL to calculate measures of centrality for each of the accounts within the networks, the program was also used to detect the presence of certain words and the total number of negative and positive words within tweets. Previous research has been effective in utilizing this kind of mixed-method content and network analysis with online sources

(Black et al., 2011).

Due to the limitation created by NodeXL only being able to retrieve data from

Tweets using the search words within the past two weeks, it was necessary to wait for

39 network generating events to occur before data could be collected. Throughout the course of the research process, several of these events occurred. However, due to the cultural significance of Young Thug’s album cover, his name and the word “dress” can be searched for at any point in time and a significant number of tweets containing these terms will be collected. These terms were searched for and the content of the tweets was analyzed.

Following the initial analysis of Tweet containing “Young Thug” and “dress”, the first noteworthy network generating event occurred in February of 2020 when Young

Thug Tweeted something transphobic about Dwayne Wade’s transgender child. In this instance, the terms “Young Thug” and “dress” were used again to collect data through

NodeXL. After the initial data was collected, the sociogram was analyzed and content analysis was performed on the most central Tweets. This process was repeated for all of the following sociograms created using data from Twitter. In addition to analyzing the content of the aforementioned Young Thug network, in August of 2020, a white male rapper named Machine Gun Kelly attended the VMA’s wearing an all-pink ensemble and white pearl necklace. A sociogram was created searching for the terms “MGK or

Machine Gun Kelly” and “Pink,” and, again, the content of the most central Tweets was analyzed. A final network generating event occurred in November of 2020 when Vogue released a magazine cover depicting pop star, Harry Styles, wearing a dress. This generated a substantial amount of conversation on Twitter in which users soon began to compare Styles’ dress wearing to Young Thug on his Jefferey album cover. Sociograms were created using with search terms “Harry Styles Dress” and “Harry Styles Young

Thug.” The first inquiry allowed for a broader exploration of the conversations about and reception of Styles wearing the dress. The second allowed for analysis of conversations focusing more specifically on the comparison being made between the two artists.

Methodological Considerations

There is wide-spread consensus among qualitative researchers concerning the importance of reflexivity throughout the research process (Cruz & Monteiro, 2017; van

Wijngaarden et al., 2018; Pousti, 2020; Soedirgo & Glas, 2020). My identity as a white, female-identifying, middle-class graduate student no doubt impacted the data collection process and interpretation of the data. Given the importance of race as a factor in this research it is even more important to acknowledge my privileged position in a society structured by racial domination. It is likely that a person of color may have had different insights into the realities of gendered racial expectations and as a result, may have approached this research differently or gleaned different more meaningful findings from the data collected through this methodology. For these reasons, a considerable amount of thought was put into continuous reflexivity by assuring that research decisions and any assertions put forward concerning race were adequately supported by previous literature or the data.

The methodology described in preceding paragraphs was incredibly useful in uncovering several interesting findings surrounding reactions to artists performing gender in transgressive ways. However, these methods still have several limitations that are important to acknowledge. The inability of NodeXl to gather data outside of a two-week period preceding a Twitter search has already been discussed, as it limits the amount of

41 data that can be collected. This limitation prevents data from past instances of high- profile gender transgressions by musical artists to be analyzed in an in-depth way.

Additionally, the methodology used in this study makes use of case study analyses. Within the social sciences there is not widespread methodological agreement about how “cases” should be used and selected (Ragin & Becker, 1992). In this study, whenever a high-profile musical artist dressed in feminine clothing in a highly publicized environment, the Twitter networks created by people responding to these specific instances are analyzed and compared with one another as cases. The selection of these cases was limited to the two-year time period during which this research was taking place. On the one hand, this case study approach allows for a variety of different instances to be analyzed in detail. However, on the other hand, this methodological choice makes generalizations to larger populations impossible. In other words, while the purpose of these cases studies is to reveal patterns that may be more general, additional methods will be necessary to access the generality of findings.

Finally, the networks collected were compared to one another in order to interpret differences in the most pervasive Tweets among these networks. Unfortunately, the wide variation in network size likely impacted the variety of opinions being presented within them. Despite these limitations, the methodology used in this research study led to important and interesting insights that reflect the state of the current gendered social order and its propensity for change.

Data Analysis of Sociograms from Wikipedia and Twitter

Young Thug: Brokering Gender Reflexivity Across Musical and Cultural Space

Data analysis began with the creation of a sociogram containing the following rappers’ Wikipedia pages: Young Thug, Jaden Smith, Pharrell Williams, Lil B, 21

Savage, and Gucci Mane. Also included in this sociogram were the gender-related pages

“non-binary gender” and “androgyny.” The sociogram depicts all of the links out from these pages to other Wikipedia pages and the connections between them. As was previously mentioned, pages that link out from Young Thug’s page were included in this sociogram. The nodes in this network represent the Wikipedia pages themselves and the edges represent a link between these pages.

Figure 1

Initial Graph Depicting the Links Among Rap Artists’ and Gender Pages

Within Figure one and other sociograms depicting links between Wikipedia pages, the nodes or colored dots displayed represent pages on Wikipedia. As was previously mentioned, the arrows that connect one node to another represent the presence of hyperlink on one Wikipedia page to the other (following the direction of the arrow). The nodes are colored differently based on grouping algorithms enabled through NodeXL. Nodes of the

44 same color share links and absences of links to pages in similar ways. Nodes of the same color tend to be clustered together, as they share common links with one another.

Through analyzing the initial combined sociogram (see Figure 1), it is clear that rapper’s pages are densely clustered to the left side of the graph. On the right side of the graph are pages related to gender, and in the middle, bridging these two clusters, are pages related to artists well-known for transgressing gender norms like David Bowie and Marilyn

Manson. However, given the density of this network, it is difficult to identify the positions of several of the pages that were intended to be the focus of this analysis. For this reason, the network was then filtered down using NodeXL’s dynamic filters feature by level of centrality. The network was filtered by page rank. Page rank is a measure of inward ties which was utilized over other measures of centrality because using a measure of centrality that included outward ties would have skewed the data, as Young Thug was the only artist whose outward ties were included during data processing. This revealed a network that depicted only the Wkipedia pages that were more central to the network.

Figure 2

Links Among Rap Artists and Gender Pages Filtered by Page Rank

The filtered down version of the sociogram (Figure 2) reveals several points of interest. Pages belonging to well-known musical artists, news outlets, and gender terms have been labeled in order to make the sociogram easier to interpret. Rapper’s pages within this filtered down sociogram are still clustered on the left side. News outlets are often times important to connecting big-name rap artists to gender related pages, meaning that the news source’s page contains a link to a rap artist’s page and a link to a gender- related Wikipedia page. The gender terms on the right branch out into pages related to

Greek mythology. Of particular interest is Young Thug’s role as an important bridging vertex in this network. The rapper’s page is positioned similarly to David Bowie and

Marilyn Manson in that he connects rappers in the network to the gender-related pages, but he appears to link many more pages than even these well-known gender transgressors do; although, the large amount of edges connecting to this vertex could be the result of including both inward and outward ties to his Wikipedia page.

In order to compare how African American rap artists’ Wikipedia pages link to gender-related pages with how white non-rap artists’ pages link to these terms, a similar sociogram was created using the same analysis steps, but with Harry Styles being in the position of Young Thug. Harry Styles is a white pop artist who is well-known for transgressing gender norms in a similar way to Young Thug. This network also included the following artist’s pages: Harry Styles, Marilyn Manson, David Bowie, Justin Beiber,

Zayn Malik, and Adam Levine. This second analysis also included the same gender pages: non-binary gender and androgyny. This network was also filtered down based on page rank.

Figure 3

Links Among White Non-Rap Artists and Gender Related Pages Filtered by Page Rank

Within this network of white non-rap artists, several clusters from the previous network can still be observed. News outlets’ pages are still very central to the network and are often positioned as bridging vertices between artists’ and gender-related pages.

Additionally, the cluster of gender terms remains largely separate from the dense cluster of artists and news outlets. Finally, the gender terms related pages still branch out towards Greek mythology pages. Despite these similarities, there are still some key

48 differences in the organization of this network and the initial rap artist network. While

Harry Styles is well known for transgressing gender norms, he does not appear to serve the same important bridging purpose that Young Thug’s page did in directly linking gender-related pages to artists’ pages. However, Harry Styles does link to David Bowie who appears to be an important bridging link in this network. Female pop artist, Lady

Gaga, serves as an important vertex, linking to more than one of the gender-related pages.

These differences in network structure between the two sociograms suggest interesting implications for how these different topics are linked conceptually.

In order to further understand the importance of certain vertices to their overall networks, the overall measures of centrality for each vertex were calculated using

NodeXL for each of the networks. Again, page rank was chosen as the ideal measure of centrality for analyzing vertex centrality due to it being a measure of only inward ties.

Table 1

Measures of Centrality for Vertices in the Rap Artists’ Wiki Network Category Page Rank

Current Day Artists Young Thug 11.831 Kanye West 7.232 Lil Wayne 5.310 Lil Uzi Vert 2.736 Gucci Mane 2.615 Tyler the Creator 2.031 Kevin Durant 1.837 Pharrell Williams 1.452

Older Artists David Bowie 3.554 Jay-Z 3.541

News Outlets Rolling Stone 10.013 The Guardian 5.540 The New York Times 4.986 VH1 2.145

Gender-Related Pages Gender identity 3.105 Gender Role 2.753 Hermaphrodite 2.499 Gender Bender 1.777 Gender Binary 1.765 Hermes 1.751 Non-Binary Gender 1.477 Gender Expression 1.431

Table 2

Measures of Centrality for Vertices in the Non-Rap Artists’ Wiki Network Category Page Rank

Current Day Artists Harry Styles 13.683 Lady Gaga 5.766 Kanye 5.210 Usher 3.277 Niall Horan 3.200 Christopher Nolan 1.683

Older Artists David Bowie 5.397 Paul McCartney 4.935 Prince 4.068 Stevie Wonder 3.261 Fleetwood Mac 1.650

News Outlets The New York Times 21.735 Rolling Stone 20.106 The Guardian 20.054

Gender-Related Pages Gender identity 3.905 Hermaphrodite 3.146 Gender Role 2.763 Non-Binary Gender 2.425 Hermes 2.050 Gender Expression 1.934 Gender Bender 1.801 Gender Binary 1.606

A comparison of these two tables (Tables 1 and 2 above) reveals some interesting information. It is clear that Harry Styles has a slightly higher level of centrality within his network than Young Thug does within his network. This initially appears to not support the original network analysis in which it appeared that Young Thug was more central than Harry Styles in their respective networks. However, upon looking more closely,

Young Thug has a higher level of centrality relative to the other vertices within his network. For example, Young Thug’s level of centrality is quite a bit higher than many of the news outlets within his network, while the level of centrality for Harry Styles’ Wiki page is drastically lower than the news outlet pages within his network. While both artists are the most central to their own networks in comparison to other notable artists within the networks, Young Thug’s page appears to be relatively more central to his network than Harry Styles.

Data Analysis of the Content Structure of Conversations on Twitter

Due to Young Thug’s importance within the Wikipedia sociogram in addition to him being well-known for gender transgressions, he was chosen as the initial focus for analysis utilizing Twitter conversations. Conversations about Young Thug transgressing masculine gender norms have been occurring on Twitter since his most notable gender transgression occurred when he wore a dress on his Jeffrey album cover in 2016. An advanced Twitter search, in which twitter allows you to search for Tweets that include specific words that are from a specific time was conducted using the period around the album’s release and the words “young thug” and “dress.” The Tweets found through this

52 search method supported that Young Thug wearing the dress was a popular topic of conversation.

Opinions in these Tweets ranged from negative perceptions of him wearing the dress to more positive ones. Some examples of negative opinions included tweets like,

“Young “THUG” + dress? Thugs where [sic] dresses now in the rap game? Out” Some

Twitter users more directly acknowledged the musical artist’s gender transgression:

“Fashion police was on sway in the morning talking about young thug dress was artistic

that’s a man wearing a dress.” Some of the more positive Tweets include users supporting the rapper’s fashion choice while also acknowledging the disapproval of others, stating, “Yo who cares if Young Thug wears [sic] dress. Thugga is lit and will always be lit get that bullshit out of here,” and “The young thug dress looks kinda cool i

[sic] can’t lie.” Another interesting theme that emerged was the connections that users were drawing between Young Thug’s feminine gender performance and his sexuality:

“Young Thug gay for the dress bug [sic] Jefferey bang ” and “Young Thug looks gay af in that dress don’t @ me because your opinion is redundant” “Young thug gay af for dat dress shit don’t @ me.” By analyzing the content of these tweets, it is clear that opinions on Thug’s feminine gender norm performance varied and that assumptions were being made about his sexuality in relation to this performance. However, it would be even more insightful to incorporate network structural analysis with content analysis when analyzing the conversations because some opinions are more pervasive than others.

Young Thug is the most prominent African American rap artist to transgress gender norms and his Jeffrey album cover was so prolific that a Twitter search network

53 analysis can be run at any point in time and still garner a significant number of Tweets despite the fact that NodeXL can only collect Tweets from the two weeks preceding the search. In Twitter sociograms generated using the software, the vertices represent the accounts of users who have Tweeted the search terms and the edges represent interactions with those Tweets including retweets, mentions, and replies. In order to see if an interesting network could be visualized with Tweets gathered at the present, the terms

“Young Thug” and “Dress” were used to collect data through NodeXL.

Figure 4

Initial Twitter Sociogram Generated using Search Terms “Young Thug” and “Dress”

Initially, it seems clear that these Tweets do not form a very compelling network structure. However, the majority of the opinions being presented are positive. However, there are still some negative statements. Several of the Tweets reference lyrics from a more recent song in which Young Thug states that he wore the dress in order to conceal a firearm. Some of the Tweets, similarly to what the previous content analysis revealed, also more directly discuss gender and masculinity: “Someone once had the TL come for me bc I said Young Thug was trolling by wearing a dress (‘he doesn’t care about gender norms!’...” and “Young thug said ‘had to wear a dress cause i [sic] had a stick’ on just how it is and the walls of toxic masculinity in rap music have been missing since”

Despite not much being able to be gleaned from the structure of these conversations, they further support that these kinds of gender performances, and those of Young Thug in particular, are still a prominent point of discussion.

In order to get a better idea of the role that network structure plays in these conversations, it was necessary to wait for an event to occur related to these performances so that a more significant amount of data could be gathered. One such event occurred in February of 2020 when professional basketball player, Dwayne Wade, publicly voiced his support for his transgender child. In response to this event, Young

Thug Tweeted, “All I wanna say to dwade son is ‘GOD DONT MAKE MISTAKES’ but hey live your true self” in response. This Tweet generated several conversations on

Twitter in which Young Thug wearing women’s clothing was discussed. To analyze the structure and content of these conversations another Twitter sociogram was created again using the search terms “Young Thug” and “Dress.”

Figure 5

Sociogram Generated After Young Thug’s Transphobic Tweet

The network displayed in Figure 5 shows that there are a variety of popular

Tweets within this network that form individual clusters. These clusters and the Tweets most central to them can be individually isolated and their content analyzed. The size of the vertices within these clusters reflects their in-degree. In-degree is a measure of centrality that is based on in-ward ties. Because in-ward ties represent accounts being retweeted, replied to, or mentioned, this measure of centrality was ideal for the sizing of vertices. NodeXL also allows users to collect data surrounding the popularity of the

Twitter accounts that popular Tweets came from.

Figure 6

Thotimus_primee Isolated Cluster with Tweet Description

The blue cluster displayed in Figure 6 contains what was the most popular tweet in the network. The initial Tweet belongs to an account called thotimus_primee which has 1,896 followers and appears to be a personal account. In order to properly analyze the content of the Tweet from this account, which is most central to the network, a bit of context surrounding this situation is required. Shortly before Young Thug Tweeted about

Wade’s child, fellow musical artist Azealia Banks posted a video on Instagram in which she stated that many rappers make homophobic comments because they are actually closeted homosexuals. In response to this video in combination with Young Thug’s comment about Dwayne Wade’s child, thotimus_primee Tweeted, “Azelia Banks said this this morning and literally not even 24 hours later Young Thug fixed his dress wearing, snaggertooth looking ass to say some transphobic shit.” This user is referring to

Azelia Banks’ video and is drawing a connection from her statements to Young Thug having worn a dress and being transphobic. The user is indicating that Young Thug is an example of the artists Banks was referring to. The user seems to be implying that because

Young Thug wore a dress and then said something transphobic that this calls into question his sexuality.

Figure 7

Celibatespice Isolated Cluster with Tweet Description

The Tweet most central to the network cluster depicted in Figure 7 originated from an account called celibatespice. This account has 50,438 followers. Unfortunately, at the time of this analysis, the account had been deleted making it unclear if this account is a personal or fan account. This user Tweeted “I just found out Young Thug’s dress is on display in The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston” along with an image of the dress

58 displayed at the museum. This Tweet is not particularly relevant to the discussion of

Young Thug’s transphobic Tweet, but it’s centrality to the network is telling of how significant users found this event to be.

Figure 8

Finessence_ and Zerosuitassley Isolated Clusters with Tweet Descriptions

Figure 8 displays connected clusters with two more central tweets from users finessence_ and zerosuitassley. These accounts have 2,947 and 348 followers, respectively. Finessence_ appears to be a personal account and zerosuitassley’s account has been deleted. Finessence_’s tweeted “young thug wearing a dress here and there still don’t mean non cuz he was performing it. That ***** ain’t analyzing gender, sexuality, and gender expression beyond his own experience.” This Tweet suggests that the artist is not intending to make a statement on gender or sexuality but rather that he is just performing in a more traditional sense. Contrary to a previous Tweet, this seems to imply

59 that this user does not believe that it was hypocritical for Thug to Tweet something transphobic just because he wore a dress. The Tweet from zerosuitassley reads, “Young thug has a whole album cover with him in a dress… the fact he would even fix his fingers to tweet that is… comical.” This user is suggesting that it is comical that Young Thug would Tweet something transphobic after wearing women’s clothing as a man. This suggestion of hypocrisy is interesting because it stands in contrast to the previous Tweet by equating a man wearing women’s clothing and transgender gender presentation. Also of interest is the account bridging these two initial accounts, eastatalantabam. This account interacted with both of these Tweets despite the fact that they seem to blatantly contradict each other suggesting that the user likely disagreed with one of them and used the other to support his stance. This aspect of the conversation is a testament to how the

Tweets of others can be useful tools in navigating these social issues.

Figure 9

1kwooty and Ahmad_1994k Cluster with Tweet Description

The cluster depicted in Figure 9 also has two more central tweets from accounts

1kwooty and ahmad_1994k; these accounts have 1,611 and 437 followers, respectively.

Both of these accounts also appear to be personal accounts and both of them were replying to Young Thug’s transphobic Tweet. Account 1kwooty tweeted at several people writing, “We know that but that doesn’t mean he’s not known, you go ask a random who is Young Thug ‘the rapper we cant understand’ ‘the rapper with a dress’

‘isn’t he gay?’ see what i mean now? Oh yeah i stan Thug ion agree with none of what i said.” This Tweet discusses Young Thug’s popularity and emphasizes that he is a well- known mumble rapper in addition to that he is known for the wearing the dress and is regularly rumored to be homosexual. This implies that in the Tweeter’s opinion, Young

Thug has gained a reputation surrounding his dress-wearing and sexuality. The second central Tweet from ahmad_1994k also ats other users and reads, “Young Thug wore a dress bro he can say wtf he want about ‘transgender ppl.’” This user is suggesting that because Young Thug wore a dress, he is allowed to offer his opinion on transgender identifying individuals regardless of whether or not his opinions could be considered negative. The use of quotations around the word “transgender” also seems to imply that perhaps this user does not view the transgender label as a valid gender identity. By signifying that dress-wearing by males grants them privilege to comment negatively on the gender identities of others, this Tweet, like previous Tweets, seems to be equating dress-wearing with transgender gender identification. This parallel is sometimes drawn in defense of Young Thug’s transphobic statement and sometimes in opposition to it. The two clusters within the sociogram are linked by Young Thug’s own official Twitter

61 account because these Tweets are both replies in conversations replying to his Tweet about Dwayne Wade’s child.

Collectively, this analysis shows that prominent opinions of Young Thug and his

Tweet vary but that Twitter seems to be an important platform through which people navigate their opinions on important issues like transphobia and gender presentation.

Additionally, all of the accounts that are central in this network appear to be personal accounts rather than fan or news accounts, and their numbers of followers vary greatly.

This further bolsters arguments from previous literature which support that Twitter allows for ordinary people to take part in conversations by eliminating gatekeepers

(Cross, 2011) because account popularity does not appear to determine the pervasiveness of the Tweets/opinions in these conversations.

Another network generating event occurred in August of 2020 when white rapper

Machine Gun Kelly wore a pink ensemble and pearls to the MTV Video Music Awards.

Conversations surrounding this provided an opportunity for network and content analysis that could be compared to the structure and content of conversations surrounding Young

Thug’s similarly transgressive gender performance. In order to generate this network, the terms “Machine Gun Kelly or MGK” and “pink” were searched for using NodeXL’s

Twitter search term data collecting tool.

Figure 10

Twitter Network Related to Machine Gun Kelly and His VMA Outfit

The network displayed in Figure 10 depicts several noteworthy clusters and

Tweets that are central to these clusters. Many of the Tweets that are central to this network are largely positive. Many of them commend Kelly for wearing pink and quote him defending his decision to wear the traditionally feminine color. Users wrote,

“‘You’re still scared of pink in 2020?’ - @machinegunkelly” and “Machine Gun Kelly in pink is truly superior, goodnight” and “Machine Gun Tommy Lee Kelly singing their albums in pink.” One user within the network references how others often respond to criticism over Kelly’s gender performance by stating that he is dating actress Megan Fox.

Another user quotes Kelly stating that he will punch people with his hand regardless of what color his nails are painted (see Figure 10). This is interesting because it seems that these expressions of masculinity, referring to being with women and acts of violence, could be a tactic used to mediate the negative effect that non-gender conforming feminine acts can have on male artists’ reputations within a society and genre typified by hegemonic masculinity. Young Thug could also be doing a similar negotiation when he refers to how he wore the dress on the Jeffrey album cover so that he could conceal a gun.

What is also of interest within this network is that the most central negative comment refers to Kelly wearing the pink ensemble and pearls and states that he is a

“p*ssy punk boy” and “would fit right in with them BTS bitches.” Multiple references to

Kelly’s gender transgressions making him comparable to punk and pop artists is something not seen within any of the Young Thug conversation networks. However, these parallels being drawn between MGK and punk artists could also be the result of him playing famous rock star, Tommy Lee, in a movie about Motley Crew. This statement, in particular, refers to both the punk genre and K-pop by mentioning the popular K-pop band BTS. The user seems to indicate that these genres are more feminine and refers to this femininity negatively by using derogatory terms like “p*ssy” and

“bitch.” This seems in line with previous research supporting the presence of hypermasculine themes in rap music and further suggests that not only is the standard for artist’s representations of masculinity higher in the genre, but that other genres’ lack of rigid masculine standards is what makes them inferior in the eyes of some listeners. The conversation clustered around this negative comment tweeted by gilberthenrywe1(see the

64 orange cluster in Figure 10) is not as connected to the other clusters which offer more positive opinions of MGK. The lack of connection to other accounts in the network suggests that perhaps this view is not as pervasive.

The majority of pervasive views in conversations surrounding both Young Thug and MGK’s gender performances, apart from those discussing Thug’s transphobic Tweet, appear to be positive. However, the conversation about MGK makes more references to other musical genre’s and seem to more directly address backlash to the outfit choice including using his more masculine characteristics to mediate criticism. Additionally, many of the accounts central to the conversation surrounding MGK’s gender performance appear to be MGK fan accounts and news accounts. This could be a result of

MGK being an arguably more mainstream artist than Young Thug. Overall, there are interesting and notable differences between the content and structure of conversations being had about Young Thug’s versus MGK’s gender transgressions.

In order to further investigate if there are differences in how Twitter users view

Black rap artists and white non-rap artists given various degrees of gender transgressions, a word sentiment analysis was conducted on conversations surrounding various artists.

This analysis was conducted using a NodeXL feature which allows users to identify the presence of specific words within Tweets. The words that were used in this analysis are related to gender and sexuality and include the following terms: gender, non-binary, nonbinary, binary, trans, sexuality, gay, homo, homosexual, fag, faggot, female, and feminine. Separate analyses were run for each of the artists who had transgressed gender norms to various degrees. These artists are the same artists who were divided

65 categorically during the Wikipedia analysis. The following tables depict the number of the words associated with gender and sexuality that were mentioned in conversations about the artists along with the counts of the specific words.

Table 3

African American Rap Artist Word Sentiments in Tweets Name Word Count

Young Thug 20

Jaden Smith 18

Pharrell 0

Lil B 0

21 Savage 4

Gucci Mane 0

Total 42

Table 4

Words Present in Twitter Conversations About Rap Artists Word Count gender 6 gay 27 binary 2 homo 7

Total 42

Table 5

White Non-Rap Artists Word Sentiments in Tweets Name Word Count

Harry Styles 43

David Bowie 6

Marilyn Manson 17

Justin Bieber 21

Zayn Malik 44

Adam Levine 5

Total 136

Table 6

Words Present in Twitter Conversations About Non-Rap Artists Word Count gender 6 gay 118 feminine 3 sexuality 7 trans 2

Total 136

Through comparing Tables 3 and 5, it is clear that words relating to gender and sexuality are more often present in Tweets containing the names of white non-rap artists than in conversations containing the names of African American rap artists. These words are present more than twice as often in Tweets about Harry Styles than in Tweets about

Young Thug. This could reflect that Young Thug has received less wide-spread recognition for his gender transgressions. Additionally, in the rap category, the artists whose Wiki pages make mention of their transgressive gender performances are far more likely to have the words be present in Tweets containing their names than the other rap artists who are not as well known for or have not transgressed masculine gender norms while in the non-rap category, the presence of these words is less in line with these categorical distinctions. The presence of words in Tweets containing the names of rap artists are almost exclusively in Tweets containing the names of artists who have

68 explicitly performed non-gender-conforming acts. The majority of the words present in both categories are neutral words pertaining to gender and sexuality; however, the word

“homo,” which is more derogatory, is present seven times in Tweets about rap artists.

These observations support that hypermasculinity in rap or race could be affecting

Twitter users’ perceptions of rap artists vs non-rap artists.

In November of 2020 another network generating event occurred when Vogue

Magazine released the cover of their December edition depicting Harry Styles as the first man to ever grace the cover solo wearing a dress. This generated a significant amount of conversation online and presented an opportunity to directly compare reactions to Styles’ gender transgressions with those of Young Thug. A network was generated using the search terms “Harry Styles” and “dress” which contained a substantial 17,644 vertices.

Due to the volume of Tweets containing these search terms, the initial sociogram, was cluttered making it difficult to discern any notable network structure. To make this sociogram easier to interpret and analyze, the network was filtered down based on retweet count. The average amount of retweets for vertices in this network was roughly

826. The retweet size was set to a minimum of 413 (half of the average). This resulted in a network that displayed only accounts that had Tweeted the search terms and had been retweeted a minimum of 413 times by other users.

Figure 11

“Harry Styles Dress” Network filtered to 413 Retweets

After filtering the network (see Figure 11), interconnected clusters of conversations surrounding central tweets are easier to discern. To further ease the data analysis process, vertices within this network were then sorted in excel by in-degree centrality, again allowing for the vertices with the most inward ties (mentions, replies, and retweets) to be the focal point of the analysis. This sorting process revealed five accounts with the highest in-degrees. The first of which was an account belonging to

Harry Styles himself with an in-degree of 1,880.

Figure 12

Unfiltered Network Depicting Harry Styles’ Account as the Highlighted Vertex

When depicting the connections to Harry Styles’ account without applying a retweet filter (see Figure 12), it is clear that Styles’ Tweet is very central to the network and closely connects with several clusters.

Figure 13

Harry Styles Account in Retweet Filtered Network

Harry Styles Tweeted an image of himself on the Vogue cover along with a link to Vogue Magazine’s tweet about the cover. Once the network is filtered down by retweet count (see Figure 13), it is clear that Styles’ Tweet is very central to the green and light blue clusters within the network. As was previously mentioned, differently colored groups of nodes share connections and absences of connections in similar ways, so it is

72 noteworthy that Styles’ is crucial to connecting these otherwise distinct groups. In order to better understand the conversations taking place in response to this Tweet, content analysis of some of the most prominent replies was conducted.

A verified account named CaptialOfficial with 1,211,989 followers Tweeted several times on the topic of Harry Styles cover, but the most popular Tweet was a retweeted article about controversial Youtuber Logan Paul defending Harry Styles’ masculinity on his podcast along with the text “Just when this year couldn’t get any weirder @Harry_Styles.” This account was an important vertex in the same light blue cluster that Harry Styles’ account is in, indicating that they have many of the same accounts interacted with their Tweets on the topic. The account is not offering a value judgement of Harry wearing the dress but is indicating that it is “weird” for Logan Paul to defend Harry because Paul is not known for being socially conscious. Another verified account in the cluster tweeted, “Yooo @Harry_Styles you are perfect the way you are..

Keep strutting ya self.. That dress suits ya (heart heart),” voicing their approval for

Styles’ fashion choice. A third verified account with 72.2 thousand followers Tweeted,

“If you’re going to freak out over @Harry_Styles in a dress, I dare you to come to church on Sunday…” This account belongs to an individual named Rev. Rob Lee who Tweeted an image of himself where he appears to be officiating a wedding ceremony wearing a dress-like robe. Collectively, these Tweets replying to Styles’ Tweet containing the magazine cover are largely defending Harry Styles against criticism and seem to be overwhelmingly favorable of his fashion choice.

Figure 14

Isolated Cluster Containing Canyonmoonblu Vertex within Retweet Filtered Network

The Tweet with the second highest in-degree (1,109) belongs to an account called

Canyonmoodblu which has 51,961 followers. This account Tweeted, “I JUST CALLED

BARNES & NOBLE & ASKED IF THEY CARRY VOGUE MAGAZINE AND THE

WOMAN SAID, “WE DON’T HAVE THE HARRY STYLES ONE YET,” I WAS

LIKE OH HAVE U BEEN GETTING CALLS ALL DAY AND SHE SAID “YES, BUT

I UNDERSTAND, HE LOOKS RATHER GOOD IN A DRESS DOESNT HE?” IM

GONNA PASS OUT.” This Tweet and its popularity within the network amongst nodes

74 of various different colors suggest that there is widespread excitement and acceptance surrounding the magazine cover.

Figure 15

Network Filtered by Retweet Size Highlighting Hsdaily’s Tweet

The Tweet with the third highest in-degree (1,007) belonged to a fan account called hsdaily. This account has 339,547 followers. Hsdaily tweeted, “‘Harry Styles going stag on our cover this month, in a dress, no less — is history in the making. But dwelling on history risks sounding old-fashioned, and do we care so much about gender rules anymore?’ - Anna Wintour’s Editor’s Notes for Vogue December 2020” along with a link to the initial tweet from Vogue Magazine. This is an example of how many of the

75 most pervasive Tweets within this network viewed the cover positively and acknowledged the historical significance of Harry being the first solo man to appear on the magazine’s cover. This specific Tweet quotes the editor of Vogue and signifies the changing landscape of how gender and gender performances are viewed, thus situating

Harry Styles as an important figure in this shifting landscape. The vertex is also indirectly connected to two large green and blue clusters, as users interacted with both Tweets within those networks and Hsdaily’s Tweet.

The Tweet with fourth highest in-degree was from Vogue Magazine’s twitter account and had a significantly smaller in-degree than previous central vertices with an in-degree of 640. The account is of course verified and has 13,780,233 followers. Vogue tweeted a variety of images from the photoshoot with harry styles in feminine clothing and included quotes from the story that accompanied the cover. This vertex is tightly embedded in the light blue Harry Styles network again suggesting that many of the same users are interacting with both Tweets.

Figure 16

Network Filtered by Retweet Size Highlighting Updatehld’s Tweet

The Tweet with the fourth highest in-degree in this network belonged to another fan account with an in-degree of 625 and 141,199 followers. This account, named updatehld, tweeted, “‘The delightful Harry Styles going stag on our cover this month – in a dress, no less – is history in the making.’ -Anna Wintour on Harry’s Vogue cover via

December issue of Vogue.” This appears to be a shortened version of hsdaily’s Tweet quoting the Vogue editor acknowledging the fact that Harry Styles gracing the cover of the magazine is a historic event. From the network structure, depicted in Figure 16, it can be observed that this account is closely connected in the network to other Tweets with high in-degrees suggesting that many of the same people are interacting with all of these major Tweets about the cover.

Figure 17

Network Filtered by Retweet Size Highlighting Tweet from Realcandaceo

Another account with high in-degree, 456, comes from an account belonging to conservative commentator, Candace Owens, who has 2,801,928 followers. Candace

Tweeted in reply to Vogue’s Tweet, “There is no society that can survive without strong men. The East knows this. In the west, the steady feminization of our men at the same time that Marxism is being taught to our children is not a coincidence. It is an outright attack. Bring back manly men.” This Tweet stands out as a negative reaction to the Harry

Styles’ magazine cover. Candace appears to be suggesting that rigid expectations of masculinity are necessary for national prosperity. This Tweet received an abundance of backlash leading to back and forth conversations between Candace and other Twitter

78 users defending Styles and pointing out that other famous pop and rock stars from the past have often times wore feminine clothing.

Two very pervasive Tweets from accounts suffragentleman and rtuknews retweeted Owens’ statement and added “When ‘Masculinity’ is turned into an insult -

Black woman calls it out - Gets dismissed for not toeing the liberal line

@Suffragentleman on @RealCandaceO comments on Harry Styles.” This Tweet first proposes that Styles wearing the dress and perhaps the rhetoric surrounding it equates to or is a reflection of masculinity being viewed so negatively that deeming something or someone masculine is now insulting. If it is true that expectations for gender norms are shifting and that Harry Styles is an important figure in this transition, then this seems to be an indication of differences in how people are coping with this change to the current and unequal gendered social order. In this case, the central Tweets that are most central to this cluster represent push-back to the shifting social dynamic. Next, the Tweet suggests that the backlash that Candace received was a result of her being African American and not liberal. This implies that there exists an expectation for people’s political party affiliations based on their minority race. While Candace’s Tweet and the two accounts defending her received an abundance of interaction on Twitter (see Figure 17), this cluster does not appear to be closely connected to the other clusters within the network that praised Harry Styles.

Content and network analysis of Tweets containing the terms “Harry Styles” and

“Dress” reveal that the magazine cover had largely positive reception. Even though Harry

Styles is white, the topic of race was still discussed in reaction to an African American

79 conservative commentator voicing her disapproval of the cover. Again, it is clear that

Twitter is an important space for these issues to be negotiated.

In addition to many Twitter users voicing their opinions on Harry Styles wearing a dress on the cover of Vogue, many users also made direct comparisons between Harry

Styles’ magazine cover and Young Thug’s Jeffery album cover. This is of particular interest, as this analysis has previously suggested that the two are comparable figures with key demographic differences. To analyze these comparisons, a network was generated using the search terms “Young Thug” and “Harry Styles.” This network was also impressively large generating 17,625 vertices, indicating that many people were participating in conversations surrounding this comparison.

Figure 18

Unfiltered Graph Visualizing Accounts within “Harry Styles Young Thug” Network

Figure 18 depicts the sociogram that resulted from collecting accounts who had

Tweeted the search terms. Unlike the previous graph, accounts within this network appear to be largely clustered into two different groups, one dark blue and one light blue.

Again, differently colored groups of nodes share connections and absences of connections in similar ways. Vertices in this network were again sorted by in-degree in order to discover which accounts had the most interactions and had, therefore, Tweeted the most pervasive Tweets concerning the comparison between Young Thug and Harry

Styles. The size of the network was again filtered by retweet size to better identify network structure within this sociogram. The average amount of retweets for vertices in this network was roughly 11,228. The following sociograms are filtered by retweet size set to half of the average (5,614).

Figure 19

Network Filtered by Retweet Size Incognitolam’s Account

Figure 20

Tweet from Account Ingonitolam

The account with the highest in-degree by far (9,067) was titled Incognitolam and appeared to be a personal account with 2,164 followers. As can be seen in Figure 19, this account was especially central to the dark blue cluster and was bridged by several Tweets to the light blue cluster. This account Tweeted, “Harry Styles is now a progressive Icon for doing shit that Young Thug did 4 years ago. For doing shit that Andre 3000 did 20 years ago. I wonder why they didn’t get their credit” along with images of Young Thug and Andre 3000 wearing dresses (see Figure 20). The Tweet appears to be highlighting the lack of recognition that African American hip hop artists have received for wearing feminine clothing in comparison to Harry Styles. This Tweet also seems to indicate that the response to Styles’ public gender transgressions was largely positive. The implication seems to be that Harry Styles is receiving recognition because of his whiteness and that

82 rap artists who have transgressed gender norms in similar way many years prior did not receive similar recognition because of their African American racial identities.

Figure 21

Network Filtered by Retweet Size Highlighting Jrwave19 and Incognitolam’s Accounts

Figure 22

Tweet from Account jrwave19

The account with the second highest in-degree in the network belonged to jrwave19. This appears to be a personal account with an in-degree of 8,290 and 54,405 followers. This account is central to the light blue cluster within this sociogram and connects with the dark blue cluster centering on incognitolam’s account (see Figure 21).

Jrwave19 Tweeted, “Harry Styles wanna be Young Thug so bad” along with a picture of

Young Thug’s album cover and Harry Styles’ magazine cover (see Figure 22). The content of this Tweet draws attention to the fact that Young Thug transgressed gender norms before Harry Styles. It also seems to suggest that Harry Styles is attempting to emulate Young Thug by donning the dress. The structure of the network, in which the clusters centering on Tweets with the highest in-degrees are linked through bridging

84 vertices, suggest that many accounts have interacted with both jrwave19 and incognitolam’s Tweets.

Figure 23

Network Filtered by Retweet Size Highlighting Snootid’s Twitter Account

The vertex with the next highest in-degree belonged to an account called snootid: although, this vertex has a far smaller in-degree than the previous Tweets at 95. This account appears to be a personal account with 24,7326 followers. Snootid Tweeted,

“every time harry styles put on a dress white twitter argues for a week. at least we kept the young thug discussion under 5 days.” The content of this Tweet draws racial distinctions between the way that Twitter users responded to Young Thug wearing a

85 dress in comparison to Harry Styles wearing a dress. The suggestion seems to be that

Young Thug’s gender transgressions were Tweeted about for less time, which could be a result of less attention by mainstream “white” Twitter or due to the fact that Young Thug is African American as are many of his listeners. Less attention and debate could have been given to Young Thug’s transgression when it occurred. This Tweet is a direct reply to jrwave19’s Tweet. Unsurprisingly, snootid’s account is within the same cluster as jrwave19’s and was interacted with by many of the same Twitter users (see Figure 23).

Network and content analysis of this network generated using the search terms

“Young Thug Harry Styles” revealed that the comparison between the two artists' gender transgressions was pervasive. The most prominent Tweets indicate disapproval with the lack of recognition and positive reception that Young Thug and other rap artists received compared to Harry Styles who could have been attempting to emulate Thug through wearing a dress. This deficit in responses is oftentimes contributed to race. In addition to the initial network and content analysis, a word sentiment analysis was conducted on this network using NodeXl which revealed the presence of 44,810 negatively connotated words and only 18,580 positive words. This does not necessarily suggest that the sentiment of the Tweets themselves were negative but could reflect the critical lens through which Twitter users were comparing the two gender transgressions.

Discussing Differential Responses to Artists’ Gender Transgressions

The methodology used in this study poses limitations due to the nature of case studies being non-generalizable and limiting reliability across time. Other limitations of this research include that these analyses have been conducted longitudinally across the span of only the last year showing how the public has responded to numerous relevant events across this short time-period. The inability of NodeXL to gather data outside of a two-week period made it impossible to compare notable instances of gender-norm transgression that occurred prior to the beginning of this research. The ability to gather this data would have allowed for more definitive conclusions to be drawn concerning how attitudes towards non-normative gender performances have changed across time.

Finally, there exists large variation in network size between cases making it difficult to assert what role network size might have played in content differences across these conversations. Despite these limitations, the analysis of data gathered from Wikipedia and Twitter has served to emphasize the importance of supplementing content analysis of online sources with structural analysis while also revealing a variety of interesting insights into how people perceive and respond to the gender transgressions of artists of various genres and races.

Concerning the analysis of data gathered from Wikipedia, the presence of links between pages on Wikipedia suggest not only that Wikipedia’s editors, who are motivated largely by factual accuracy, believe that these links are justified by passively not editing them out, but also that a large audience of Wikipedia users have viewed the links between pages. Thus, I propose that these links reflect a widely held conceptual

87 connection between the topics of their pages. Young Thug’s page was an important bridging vertex connecting pages of other rappers to gender-related pages. This suggests that he is not only conceptually linked to ideas about gender but also that he is important in connecting rap as a genre to ideas of gender and gender transgression. The network analysis revealed that he was situated similarly in the network to individuals who are very well known for their gender transgressions like David Bowie and Marilyn Manson. This suggests that Thug is becoming a similar figure in terms of his relationship to transgressing masculine gender norms. Utilizing comparative analysis between African

American rap artists’ Wiki network and white non-rap artists’ Wiki networks it becomes clear that Harry Styles did not serve as a similar conceptual link between ideas of gender and non-rap artists. However, as he has continued to prominently display feminine gender performances, this may no longer be the case, and he may become increasingly well- known for his gender transgressions.

An analysis of Tweets discussing Young Thug wearing a dress on his Jeffery album cover, first on its own and then in response to a particularly transphobic tweet, revealed that people largely look back on the gender transgression positively. Although, an advanced Twitter search revealed that this was likely not the case when the album cover artwork was initially released. These Tweets not only reveal the significance of

Young Thug’s dress wearing in pop culture but also appear to indicate parallels that users draw between gender performance, gender identity, and sexuality. A prominent theme within the content of these Tweets were users equating non-masculine gender performance by an African American man to homosexuality. Additionally, users were

88 observed equating these non-traditional gender performances with transgender gender identities, sometimes in defense of Young Thug’s transphobia and sometimes in opposition to it.

In contrast to the mentions of sexuality in the Young Thug Twitter network, when a white rap artist, Machine Gun Kelly, transgressed masculine gender norms through wearing a pink ensemble with pearls to the VMA’s, he was met with largely positive reception and little mention of his sexuality. Users utilized and highlighted other hypermasculine characteristics of MGK’s including his threats of violence and his attractive girlfriend in order to mitigate the negative effects that a feminine gender performance could have on his ability to represent the hegemonic ideal. The lack of

Tweets implying a relationship between MGK’s gender transgression and his sexuality/gender could be a result of his race or the fact that, unlike young thug, he had not tweeted anything transphobic. However, due to the fact that the initial advanced

Twitter search revealed a large presence of Tweets calling into question Thug’s heterosexuality when he released the album cover, I am compelled to side with the former. If this lack of Tweets related to sexuality did in fact result from MGK’s whiteness, the presence of these Tweets within conversations about Young Thug could be a result of hypermasculine expectations placed on African American men. Because the standard of masculinity is higher for African American men due to the way that various masculinities are organized hegemonically, transgressions that might not be viewed as severe for white men could receive harsh backlash in the form of implications about

Young Thug’s sexuality. Because both of the artists perform within the rap genre, it is

89 unlikely that the hypermasculinity of the genre itself contributed to these differences in responses.

Comparisons between Twitter networks surrounding Young Thug and Harry

Styles’ dress-wearing also revealed that responses to Harry Styles wearing a dress on the

December cover of Vogue Magazine were largely positive with the exception of a critique from conservative commentator Candace Owens. Even within the negative comment, no mention of how Harry Styles’ performance related to his sexuality or gender identity could be identified within Tweets from the most central Twitter accounts.

This could again be a result of Harry Styles’ whiteness or, this time, it could be the result of differences in genre, as the pop genre is less well-known for having hypermasculine themes. Additionally, there were huge variations in network size between the Young

Thug networks and the Harry Styles network. Other possible causes between the two gender transgressive performances receiving unequal reception became clearer through analysis of Tweets directly comparing them.

This analysis not only revealed that many Twitter users were discussing this comparison, nearly as many as were responding to Harry Styles wearing the dress on its own, but also, it revealed that the most pervasive Tweets brought to light the lack of recognition that Young Thug and other rap artists have received for the gender transgressive performances in comparison to Harry Styles, often implying that this deficit was due to the minority race of the former. Many of the most pervasive Tweets within the

Harry Styles network lauded his fashion choice as an important historical moment despite that fact that Young Thug had similarly transgressed masculine gender norms several

90 years prior. Dominant white culture in the United States has a habit of appropriating aspects of African American culture and then praising these cultural features when they are no longer widely associated with Blackness. This pattern of appropriation and lack of acknowledgement of Black cultural influence can be seen in the creation of rock’n’roll

(Garofalo, 2005), voguing (Wolde-Michael, 2019), and even in hip-hop music and culture (Rodriquez, 2006). The responses within this Twitter network indicate that the powerful transgressions of masculine gender norms through female dress by prominent artists could be another cultural facet in which Black artists are not receiving deserved recognition for their important contributions.

These comparative analyses of Twitter conversations occurring in response to gender transgressions by musical artists of different genres and races serve as compelling evidence that the intersection of race and gender may have a significant influence on how the public perceives these transgressions. These differences in perception are a testament to how inextricable expectations for gender performances are with race. These are undoubtedly tied to the history of legal slavery and white domination in the U.S.

However, as more African American rap artists push the boundaries of acceptable presentations of masculinity, as they have continued to since the early days of Andre

3000 and the Jefferey album cover, this increased visibility of subversive gender presentations could result in the crumbling of these sticky presumptions.

The kinds of accounts that were prominent in these Twitter discussions also varied based on factors pertaining to the conversations. For example, in Harry Styles and

MGK’s Twitter networks, the most central accounts were often verified news accounts or

91 fan accounts. Verified accounts are accounts belonging to prominent individuals and brands that have been authenticated by Twitter, thus verifying the identity of the account holder. Fan accounts are accounts that are dedicated to Tweeting about a specific public figure or brand. In contrast to the prominence of verified news accounts and fan accounts within the MGK and Harry Styles networks, in networks discussing Young Thug’s non- normative gender performances, the most central accounts were more often than not personal accounts with wide-ranging follower counts. This could be a result of the fact that Harry Styles and MGK have more loyal fan bases or are more mainstream artists.

This would suggest that within these conversations, the most popular accounts are likely to have the most pervasive Tweets despite the idea that Twitter is an open forum through which anyone can take place in conversations. Additionally, within the Harry Style’s network verified accounts with the most pervasive Tweets were singing Styles’ praises and crediting him as a trailblazer of powerful masculine gender-norm transgression while this was not the case within the Young Thug networks. This reveals a double standard that highlights how the gatekeeping of pervasive views can be problematic.

Overall, these analyses suggest that Twitter serves as an important platform through which users can critically evaluate things like gender performances and race. The fact that so many people are engaging in conversations on these topics is important because, if gender theorists are correct about how drawing attention to the non- naturalness of gender performances can be subversive, then this conversation could indicate that perceptions of the rigidity of gender norms are shifting. If public perception concerning the naturalness of gender performances shifts enough towards the

92 understanding that gender is a socialized performance and not natural, then it could weaken and ultimately topple the structure on which the gender binary and gender inequality rests.

The Significance of Twitter and Wikipedia Network Analyses

Culture is embedded in the structure of interaction and both are recorded in the online setting; thus, using both to gain insights is an important way to learn more from the existing data. Additionally, if the content of Tweets within these networks was analyzed alone, it would have been difficult to identify which views were the most pervasive. Treating the content of all Tweets as if they have equal significance is at best questionable methods and at worst offers an inaccurate representation of data. Future research should continue to examine posts on social media using content analysis in tandem with network structural analysis to better identify what makes some posts more popular than others. This is important because social media networks, much like real life social networks can serve as socializing forces in the lives of their users, shaping their ideas of norms, values, and beliefs.

Future research should also continue to analyze instances in which high profile individuals of different races and occupations transgress gender norms in different contexts in order to further determine their transformative potential. It would be useful to supplement case studies of conversations with more broadly generalizable research methods such as surveys or interviews. This would allow for a more comprehensive understanding of the public’s perceptions of these instances. Researchers should also seek to understand how the popularity, wealth, and public image of artists from different genres affects how their performative transgressions are perceived. Survey methods could be a useful tool in obtaining data for this type of comparative analysis. Insights from this

94 research would serve to track meaningful changes to our cultural expectations for gender performances and ultimately how we organize our society based on gender.

This research has revealed findings that would likely be of interest to scholars in a variety of fields including race and gender studies. First, the intersectional identities of

African American rap artists seem to position them to challenge the binary differently and possibly in a more subversive way. Additionally, the lack of recognition that Young

Thug received for his non-normative gender performance is a testament to the continued struggle for African American artists to receive praise for their cultural contributions.

Finally, social media scholars will find the conclusions drawn about which accounts within these conversations are the most prominent to be of interest when continuing to analyze networks on social media sites. The transgressive gender performances analyzed in this study are undoubtedly important tools in changing gendered expectations and ultimately, dismantling the current and unequal gendered social order.

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