Sanditon, composed in the early months of 1817, differs from the other texts covered by this book in that it was the work of a woman who was finally a published novelist, and one who had enjoyed some success, both popular and critical. Jane Austen had eventually brought out in quick succession four novels: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815). By early August 1816, she had completed Persuasion. According to Kathryn Sutherland, the manuscript of Sanditon thus shows ‘the working methods of a confident and experienced professional novelist’, while Linda Bree and Janet Todd observe that Sanditon is ‘neatly divided into chapters’ and was written in larger booklets than the earlier manuscript works. By comparison with The Watsons, there are no interpolated pages or inserted material, and much of the text contains little correction. This last circumstance might speak to Austen's growing confidence in her writing, but it is at least partially explained by the brief period of composition: the first page of the first booklet bears the date 27 January 1817, the first page of the third is marked ‘Mar. 1’, and at the end of the MS appears the date ‘March 18’. There is no evidence that, as her final illness advanced, Austen was able to revisit the text after 18 March: she died exactly four months later, on 18 July.

Mary Lascelles commented long ago that had any of the published novels broken off at the same point as Sanditon ended (part-way through Chapter 12), it would not ‘have left us in such uncertainty as to the way in which it was going to develop’. On the other hand, whereas in the cases of ‘Catharine’, Lady Susan and The Watsons, it can be argued that Austen abandoned her work because of problems inherent to what she had already written, the incompleteness of Sanditon has always been attributed to the deterioration of the author's health. It is assumed that had Austen lived, she would have finished the novel. As a result, a combination of factors – Austen's elusive intentions for this fragment, its status as her last substantial work, and the belief that she would have completed it had she survived – means that Sanditon is a text whose unanswered questions have especially fascinated many readers and critics.

6.1 Historical Context: “Insiders from the Outside”

6.1.1 The emergence of the United States in Northeast Asia

The United States and Russia are “outsiders” in Northeast Asia because most or all of their territory is located outside the region. The United States holds no territory in Northeast Asia although it has Guam and the Saipan Islands in the Western Pacific. Russia has held territory along the eastern shores of Northeast Asia (Khabarovsk Krai and Primorsky Krai) and above the Amur River (Amur Oblast) since the late nineteenth century although most of its vast territory and population are located outside Northeast Asia. Yet, both are also “insiders” because they have exercised a massive influence in the region, particularly since the end of World War II, shaping the region's political and economic landscape. The United States and the Soviet Union, Imperial Russia's successor, became the two most important countries leading the capitalist free world and the communist bloc, respectively, and forming their own alliances in Northeast Asia. This chapter discusses these countries’ engagements in Northeast Asia and their profound impact on war and conflicts in the region, beginning with the United States.

The United States, which was still in the process of its own national development throughout the nineteenth century, was a relative late-comer to Asia, initially focusing on missionary operations in China and elsewhere. However, commercial interests drove the United States to follow the path of other European powers by seeking economic privileges from China. The United States signed the Treaty of Wanghia with China in 1844 and secured concessions mirroring those gained by Britain through its treaty with China two years earlier (the Treaty of Nanjing). The treaty included the granting of extraterritoriality—the idea that foreigners operating in China would only be subject to the laws of their home countries. It also stipulated fixed tariffs on trade, opened ports for American traders, and conferred rights to build churches and hospitals therein. The United States also received most-favored-nation (MFN) status, which accorded the United States the same beneficial treatment China gave to other European powers. Thus, the United States could reap the benefits of Europe's exploitation of China while still being seen as the least aggressive Western power. Because the United States did not take initiatives against China, Chinese officials viewed Americans as less of a threat.

The earliest known official Yulanpen Ceremony was held at the Monastery of Universal Tranquility (Tongtai si, see Figure 0.1) in Jiankang, the capital city of the Liang dynasty (502–557), in 538 or the fourth year of Datong during the reign of Emperor Wu of Liang (Liang Wudi, r. 502–549) (Fozutongji, T49n2035_037.351a26). The ceremony soon spread across the country, developed into a grand religious festival – the Yulanpen Festival (Yulanpen jie) – of making offerings to buddhas and bodhisattvas, Daoist gods and priests, deified ancestors, and orphaned souls and wild ghosts (guhun yegui) on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunisolar month, and has since been observed nationwide in China and beyond. At the core of the festival is the myth of Mulian (Skr. Maudgalyāyana; Pāli: Moggallāna) adventuring into the realm of hungry ghosts (Skr. preta; Ch. egui) to rescue his mother.

The primary source for the Mulian myth is the Yulanpen Sūtra Expounded by the Buddha (Fo shuo Yulanpen jing, T16n0685), which is traditionally attributed to the Indo-Scythian Dharmarakṣa (aka Zhu Tanmoluocha, better known as Zhu Fahu, d. 308) as its translator. Beginning in the sixth century, various references to the sūtra and the ceremony/festival appeared in both Buddhist and non-Buddhist literature. In an early sixth-century Buddhist encyclopaedia titled Differentiated Manifestations of the Sūtra and Vinaya Pitṭaka (Finglü yixiang, T53n2121_014.0073c22), for example, the sūtra was given as the scriptural source for the ceremony of making Yulanpen offerings on the fifteenth day of the seventh month.

The ceremony was also mentioned by Yan Zhitui (531–591), a prominent scholar-official who served four different, short-lived dynasties during the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420–589). In the ‘Chapter on the Final Disposition’ (‘Zhongzhi pian’), the twentieth and final chapter of his Family Instructions for the Yan Clan (Yanshi jiaxun 7.602), Yan writes:

Towards the end of her career, in 1816, Jane Austen produced a comic manuscript which she called ‘Plan of a Novel, according to hints from various quarters’. She noted in its margins the origins in her own circle for some of these ‘hints’, but another source was clearly the Rev. James Stanier Clarke, Librarian to the Prince Regent. In 1815, he had invited Austen to dedicate her forthcoming novel, Emma, to his master. Austen did this, unenthusiastically, but also found herself in a correspondence with Clarke about potential topics for another novel, one of which was obviously founded on Clarke's own view of his personality and career. Austen famously declined, affecting ignorance and incompetence, and declaring that she was ‘the most unlearned & uninformed Female who ever dared to be an Authoress’. She had been obliged to be polite, but she allowed herself some light relief in her ‘Plan of a Novel’.

What this late text does is to ridicule, pointedly and succinctly, some of the conventions of contemporary fiction: in particular, characters represented as implausibly virtuous or vicious, overblown sentiments, hectic and unconvincing plotting, and extended interpolated narratives. Hence the clergyman in the novel was to be ‘the most excellent Man that can be imagined, perfect in Character, Temper & Manners’, and his daughter, the heroine, would be ‘faultless’ and impossibly accomplished. The pair would always ‘converse in long speeches, elegant Language – and a tone of high, serious sentiment’ (228), and much of the novel's first volume would be occupied by the father's account of his life. Otherwise the plot would mostly consist of the daughter being pursued by suitors all over Europe, and constantly uprooted by one of these, a ‘totally unprincipled & heart-less young Man’ (227). There would be a hero, ‘all perfection of course’, and in general ‘the Good will be unexceptionable in every respect’, while the ‘Wicked […] will be completely depraved & infamous’ (227). After she has been ‘worn down to a Skeleton, & now & then starved to death’, the heroine and her father are forced to flee to Kamschatka, where he, ‘after 4 or 5 hours of tender advice and parental Admonition to his miserable Child, expires in a fine burst of Literary Enthusiasm’ (228). The heroine then faces ‘at least 20 narrow escapes’ from the villain, but eventually ‘runs into the arms of the Hero himself’ (229).

No. 1.

A number of Gentlemen having formed themselves into a Society, and opened a Subscription for the purpose of making a Settlement, on an eligible spot on the Coast of Africa, offer the following Proposals:

N. B. Subscriptions are received at Messrs. Biddulph, Cocks, Cocks, and Ridge, Charing-cross,857 where a list of the subscribers may be seen.

*͓* The Committee meets every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, for the dispatch of business, at seven o’clock in the evening, No. 103 Hatton-garden, Holborn.

Signed by order of the Committee, H. H. Dalrymple.

Nov. 9, 1791, No. 103, Hatton-Garden.

No. 2.

Memorandum of Agreement, and Constitution of Government, for a Colony about to be established on or near the Island of Bulam, in Africa, as engrossed and signed on the ninth day of March, 1792.

MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT made this ninth day of March, in the thirty-third year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord George the Third, by the grace of God of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith; and in the year, of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety-two, between us the subscribers about to settle a colony on the island of Bulam, or on some other part on the coast of Africa, on the one part; and the settlers or purchasers of lands in the said colony, on the other part; that is to say, that we having for certain considerations granted to persons remaining in England, allotments of land in our said colony, who thereby become purchasers of the same from us, do hereby covenant, promise and agree to and with each other, and bind and oblige ourselves to the performance of all the covenants hereinafter contained. And we hereby further agree, that we, by our governor and council, viz. Henry Hew Dalrymple, Esquire, Governor; John Young, Esquire, Lieutenant-governor; Sir William Halton, Baronet, John King, Philip Beaver, Peter Clutterbuck, Clotworthy Upton, Francis Brodie, Charles Drake, John Paiba, Richard Hancorne, Robert Dobbin, and Isaac Ximenes, Esquires, Members of our said council, shall and will sign memoranda and grants of land within the said colony or settlement, upon the terms and in the proportions as herein after expressed;

IT has been observed in the preceding chapter that to the southward of the Continental Islands, forming the coastline between Cape Roxo and Bissao, there was a cluster of other islands, making an immense harbour to the island of Bulama.

This groupe of islands is called in our charts the Bissagos islands, and are placed on shoals, called the shoals of the Rio Grande; these are the Bijuga Islands.

S.S.W. of Cape Roxo, at the distance of about twelve leagues, and in the latitude of 11. 40. north, is the N. W. edge of what are called, by seamen, the shoals of the Rio Grande. These shoals, or sand banks, extend thence in a S. E. direction full forty leagues, and are interspersed with many marshy and half-drowned, and many inhabited, islands. The north and the eastern edges of this bank are terminated by them, but the south and the western limits of it are not exactly known; at least we are so ignorant of them, that, to my knowledge, several ships have lately struck upon them, out of sight of land; and more vessels have been lost upon these shoals, I verily believe, than on all the rest of Africa. We can scarcely be said to be better acquainted with them than with the Yellow Sea.

The northern edge of these islands and shoals forms the southern limit of the great channel leading to the island of Bulama, and the mouth of the Rio Grande: although there are some shoals in this channel, yet it is every where abundantly wide, with a sufficient depth of water for the largest vessels; and in every part of it ships may anchor in perfect safety at any season of the year.

The eastern edge is formed by the islands of Galenas, Porcos, Canabac, Mayo, Honey and Poison; along which there is a deep, though narrow, and somewhat dangerous and intricate channel. The isle of Jamber, (though belonging to the Bijugas,) and the shoals between it and the Naloo shore, I consider as forming the eastern boundary of this passage.

Of the south and west limits I have not any knowledge.

Of the islands which lie scattered over this immense bank, scarcely more than the names of some of the principal ones is known to Europeans.

Preliminaries

Categories, categorization, and the organization of information are crucial topics throughout the broad realm of cognitive studies, not merely in philosophy but in both theoretical and empirical work in linguistics, psychology, and the brain sciences. Each of these disciplines offers intriguing findings regarding the ways we categorize—findings of importance for the understanding of human knowledge.

The central philosophical point that categories are crucial for cognition, in general, is fully recognized in the empirical work of other disciplines. As the linguist George Lakoff emphasizes,

A point that is clear philosophically, and essentially a priori, is that categorization and discrimination are linked. To recognize things as belonging to different categories is to be able to discriminate, at least conceptually, between items in those different categories. The “at least conceptually” allows us to say that we can discriminate between prime numbers greater than a googol and non-primes greater than a googol, though actually being able to name any of the former may be beyond our abilities. With that proviso, indeed, to recognize things as belonging to different categories is to discriminate between them.

This in no way forces us to say that all discrimination entails categorization: that if we recognize that this thing is different than that, it must be because we have assigned the two things to different categories. Categories are kinds, with the kinship of kinds determined by the pragmatic context of our purposes. Two things x and y will always belong to different sets or different arbitrary collections: we need to merely think of (1) the set to which the coins in my pocket and x belong as members and (2) the set to which the coins in my pocket and y belong as members.

PREFACE

TO

LIEUTENANT BEAVER'S JOURNAL.

I HAD long doubted whether or not I should publish the Journal I had kept during my residence on the island of Bulama, or whether it would not have been better to make short extracts from it only; but, though the form of a Journal is tedious, and the matter, in that shape, generally uninteresting, yet on this occasion it was thought best to preserve it, because it was written at the time, and with the feelings which our situation then called forth. It were easy to have put it into a different form and language, but then it would not have been what it professes to be, a transcript of my Journal actually written on the island.

There are parts, very many perhaps, which require an apology, and which it may be said, should not have been published: for instance, my first day's Journal of the 19th of July, and the one following, and those of the 12th and 17th of August, with many others; but, as before observed, it was thought best to publish the Journal as it was written; because it is conceived that if it had any interest at all, it arose from laying before the reader, our precise situation and sentiments at the time; making him as it were, one of the colonists, without experiencing any of their difficulties.

As this Journal, therefore, was written without the most distant idea of publishing it, and with the greatest probability of never being carried off the island; as it was written amidst some danger, and great bodily, as well as mental exertions, it is confidently hoped that the liberal-minded will not too rigidly criticise it; about the opinions of others I am not very anxious.

Words have been sometimes, but not frequently, altered: the sense never.

Lieutenant Beaver's Journal, &c.

ABOUT one o’clock the Calypso sailed for Sierra Leone, with the major part of the colonists, and saluted us with three guns, which was returned with seven.

Although the Yulanpen Sūtra is widely considered to be the primary source for the Mulian myth, the origin of this sūtra has been the subject for much debate and discussion among scholars of Chinese religion since the midtwentieth century. There is no extant such scripture in Indic sources known to us, nor is there any mention in them of Maudgalyāyana's journeys to the Dark Regions to rescue his mother (Bandō 2005; Kapstein 2007). The dearth of direct textual evidence in Indic sources and the centuries-long confusion and controversy surrounding the translation, transmission and cataloguing of the Yulan Sūtra/Yulanpen Sūtra as examined in the previous chapter have cast doubt on the authenticity of this Buddhist scripture. Little wonder that the Yulanpen Sūtra is frequently regarded as a Chinese Buddhist apocryphal scripture as shown in Ikeda (1926: 59–64), Honda (1927), Fujino (1956: 340–345), Iwamoto (1968; 1979: 10–20), Miyakawa (1973: 225), Makita (1976: 47–50, 84), Chen (1983: 1–2), Mair (1989: 17), Irisawa (1990: 152), Zhu (1987: 54–59; 1993: 3–11), Teiser (1986: 48–49; 1988: 46; 1989: 192), Liao (1995: 5–6), Hsiao (1995: 231–296; 1996: 83–98; 2005: 326–333), Yin (2006: 17–19), Yoshikawa (2003: 62), Tsuchiya (2005: 189–191) and Xiong (2014; 2015: 247–289), to name but a few. Most representative of them are perhaps Iwamoto, Zhu and Hsiao.

Major Arguments against the Authenticity of the Text

Iwamoto was one of the first major Japanese scholars to challenge the authenticity of the Yulanpen Sūtra. He (1968, quoted in Zhu 1993: 8; 1979: 9ff.) claims that the sūtra is not a translation from India, let alone a translation by Dharmarakṣa , mainly on the grounds that:

• (1) The content of the Mulian story is not found elsewhere in sources from ancient India;

• (2) The ‘divine eye’ (Skr. divyacakṣ́us; Ch. tianyan) is a common expression in Indian Buddhist texts, whereas the ‘eye of the Way’ (daoyan) that occurs in the Yulanpen Sūtra is a typical Chinese indigenous expression;

• (3) The conception of ‘filial devotion and submission’ (xiaoshun) is peculiar to Chinese lineage culture, as is the conception of ‘six kinds of relatives’ (liuqin) that finds no equivalent in Indian Buddhist texts, where the odd number ‘five’ or ‘seven’ tends to be used to refer to types of relatives;

Tales about saving ghosts from suffering in Hell and about gaining rebirth in a better realm for oneself or for one's deceased ancestors by making merit through charitable acts are numerous in Buddhist scriptures, but none of them features Maudgalyāyana as the central character except the Yulanpen Sūtra.

Dharmarakṣ́a and Indian Buddhist Text Transmission and Translation in China

Traditionally, the Indo-Scythian Dharmarakṣ́a (aka Zhu Fahu, d. 308) is credited with the translation of the sūtra, although there is no such Buddhist scripture extant in any known Indic sources. Respectfully dubbed ‘Bodhisattva Śramanna’ (Pusa shamen) and ‘Dunhuang Bodhisattva’ (Dunhuang pusa), Dharmarakṣ́a was born and spent his childhood in Dunhuang, a major stop on the ancient Silk Road in northwestern China; he renounced the world and became a monk (chujia) at the age of eight and studied under Śrı̄mi (Shilimi), a Kuchean śramana alternatively known as Gaozuo; during the reign period of Emperor Wu of Jin ( Jin Wudi, r. 266–290), Dharmarakṣ́a travelled extensively with his Kuchean teacher across the Western Regions, studying local languages while searching for scriptures, and returned with a great number of Kharośṭhı texts (huben); and he lived most of his productive life in Luoyang and Chang’an (modern Xi’an), translating scriptures with the assistance of a team of Central Asian and Chinese bilingual Śramanas and upāsakas, as noted by Monk Sengyou (445–518) in the ‘Biography of Zhu Fahu’ and elsewhere in the Compilation of Notices on the Translation of the Tripițaka (Chu sanzang jiji, T55n2145_013.0097c20; hereafter cited as Sanzang jiji; see also Mei 1996 and particularly Boucher 2006).

Dharmarakṣ́a was the most prolific Buddhist translator of the Western Jin (266–316). A total of 154 titles in 309 scrolls ( juan) are listed in the Compilation of Notices on the Translation of the Tripițaka (Sanzang jiji, T55n2145_002.0007b08– 0009b28) with Dharmarakṣ́a named as their translator. Of the 154 titles, sixty-four in a total of 116 scrolls are lost and known only by title to the compiler. Included now in the Taishō Tripitaț ka with Dharmarakṣa given as their translator are ninety-four titles, seventy-six of which are found listed in the Compilation of Notices on the Translation of the Tripițaka. As for the remaining eighteen titles, they are all credited to Dharmarakṣ́a as the translator in the Taishō Tripitaț ka probably under the influence of Chinese catalogues of Buddhist literature.

This chapter considers the adoption of cartoon mascots by US right-wing groups. This seems to be a phenomenon limited to the US context (McSwiney et al., 2021), although there has been some diffusion of this imagery beyond the United States. For example, Pepe the Frog is a character from the comic Boy's Club (2005) by Matt Furie (who has decried the appropriation of his character and even proclaimed him dead, as we will see). While originally there was no connection with right-wing ideas, in 2015, a number of memes associating the alt-right and Pepe were published on 4chan and in October, Donald Trump posted a cartoon of himself as Pepe. Kek is the deity of another satirical religion (The Cult of Kek) associated with the right. Pepe is considered an avatar of Kek.

Originally, right-wing propaganda took the form of “dog whistles” (Bhat & Klein, 2020) that is, references known to the initiated but that maintain a degree of deniability or simply appear nonsensical to the uninitiated. For example, the number 1488 is a white suprematist dog whistle: it consists of the number 14, which stands for “14 words” which is itself a short hand for the slogan “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” The number 88 stands for Heil Hitler, since H is the 8th letter of the alphabet. Thus white suprematist merchandise is often priced at $14.88. (https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbol/1488)

With the mainstreaming of Nazi imagery, the motivation for dog whistles seems to have diminished or possibly the amount of openly pro-Nazi, anti-semitic, pro-klan, etc., has increased along with dog whistles.

More recently, the alt-right has switched to using memes to recruit and spread their propaganda. According to Trillò and Shifman (2021, p. 2485), “Memes perform a number of key functions for the far-right, including channeling a dispersed user-base towards far-right movements and fostering in-group belonging among constituents.” They also point out that “the far-right's ability to accrue such a following depends on their ability to tap into the audience of commercial social media platforms.” (Trillò and Shifman, 2021, p. 2485)

Not only is alt-right propaganda and recruitment active on all social media, but the alt .rig ht has found alternative spaces in which to express its ideology and recruit.

The Internet (Web 1.0)

This is not a historical study, but it is important to start by noting that our world has changed significantly in an astonishingly short time span. Thirty years ago, this book would have been inconceivable simply because none of its subject matter existed. It is easy to forget that the changes we will consider all happened in under 30 years, and often much less.

The Internet was invented in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire) in Geneva, Switzerland. What Berners-Lee came up with was a transfer protocol (set of instructions) called HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) which was itself based on the older FTP (File Transfer Protocol) dating back to 1971. Berners-Lee also wrote the first browser, called WWW (World Wide Web [1990]) which allowed people to interact easily with files. Part of the development of HTTP and WWW involved laying the foundations of HTML, the code that tells browsers what to display on screen. WWW was followed by Mosaic (1993), Netscape (1994) and Internet Explorer (1995). Later, Netscape launched Mozilla (1998) as open source.

While originally meant as a decentralized network for military operations and after its adoption by academe as a way to transfer files and information about research, almost immediately the internet started being used as a way to socialize, much along the line of the first 1980s Bulletin board systems (BBSs: Fidonet, The WELL, etc.). BBSs were essentially a precursor of the internet, with the difference that they worked over phone lines and had a dial-up model (where a user would connect to the BBS, get their email or download news and log off to read them offline). Importantly the idea was to use a local BBS so that one would not have to make a long distance call, which at the time were much more expensive than local calls.

Usenet: The Big Eight and the alt. Hierarchy

BBSs “evolved” into usenet, which was decentralized; in other words, there was no need to call a central BBS. News, posts and discussions could be accessed from any computer on the network. Usenet was organized in a hierarchy of newsgroups (discussion boards) where users could post. For example the rec groups (rec stands for recreation) include rec.music, rec.film and others.

According to Zimmer (2014) and McCool (2015) the term “spoiler” started out in the 1970s. McCool reports that in 1971 Doug Kenney, one of the founders of the National Lampoon, had a feature called “Spoilers” in which he revealed the ending of such films as The Godfather, Citizen Kane and Psycho. McCool also reports the use of “spoiler warning” in a column in the sci-fi magazine Destinies. As for the actual term “spoiler alert,” both sources agree that it first occurred in 1982, in a Usenet post (on Usenet, see Chapter 1), apparently in the context of a discussion of The Wrath of Kahn (a Star Trek movie).

A “spoiler alert” is essentially a courtesy warning to the reader/viewer/hearer that one is about to reveal something about a show, book, game, etc., that is a significant plot point (for example, who wins the game). Thus if one wants to avoid having the plot spoiled, one should stop reading/watching, etc. The interest in spoiler alerts comes from the fact this is very much a contemporary phenomenon and that jokes and memes have been using the term. If one searches for “spoiler alert” on the internet, one will find that numerous articles have the phrase “spoiler alert” in the title as a clever way of conveying the point of the article. For example, the title of Viega and Thompson (2012) is “Ten Years On, How Are We Doing? (Spoiler Alert: We Have No Clue)”. I will provide an extended example by analyzing a short 2015 comedy video by Key and Peele titled “Spoiler alert” which makes fun of the topic.

As we can see from the Google n-gram, in Figure 9.1, the earliest mention of the term begins in the 1990s, but the term does not really “take off” until the 2000s. So we can safely say that the spoiler alert is a practice (I hesitate to call it a genre) that is truly exclusive to the digital world. Now it is obvious that “spoilers” have always existed, at least potentially. It is easy to image someone saying, “Dante makes it out of hell and into heaven” to a reader in AD 1321 or a reader saying, “Aeneas makes it to Rome” to a would-be reader of the Aeneid in 18BC.

The reaction video is another genre unique to digital humor. According to Wikipedia, reaction videos go back to the 1970s in Japan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_video). The basic idea is that one shows a video of someone reacting to something, usually another video. There is a general consensus that one of the first set of viral reaction videos were the reactions to the infamous “2 girls 1 cup” pornographic video (which features coprofagia—the eating of excrement—and worse; Bliss, 2022). This is in line with the old observation that whenever there is a technological advance in the field of communication, pornography is among the first uses. Bliss (2022) maintains that a lot of reaction videos still revolve around pornography. In this sort of reaction video, the amusement or pleasure we draw is from watching the disgust of the viewers or their amusement, embarrassment or other emotional reaction, alone. In particular, Warren-Crow (2016) focuses on screaming “like a girl.” Indeed, according to Anderson (2011), the point of this sort of reaction video is that it allows the experience of a vicarious thrill without having to actually experience watching coprofagia, for example.

There are other, different kinds of reaction videos. In the genre that concerns us here, the screen is divided into two parts, either side by side, or one above the other, or in some cases the reaction is an inset video. The significant fact is that there are two different videos, and there is a contrast (incongruity) between the two videos. For ease of reference we will refer to the video that is being reacted to as the “target video.”

This is different from another genre of reaction video, in which a video which is not necessarily shown to the viewers is played for an audience in the video and the reactions are the subject of the video. There is debate as to what the first reaction video was. Warren-Crow (2016) claims that the first reaction video was “Nintendo Sixty-FOOOOOOOOOOUR” a video of a young boy and his sister who get very excited unpacking their Christmas present (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFlcqWQVVuU). The video dates back to 2006 and is an unboxing video.