Hey all you cool cats and kittens!
Apparently, there’s no better way to cope with a pandemic than with complete chaos. To say ‘it is weird times we are living in’ is an understatement. To make it even more weird, for my research project I will be gathering data about how social media is responding to the Netflix documentary Tiger King. In result of this, I hope to reveal exactly how and why society is using Tiger King (a depiction of complete chaos) to cope with COVID-19 (more chaos).
Twitter is home to a plethora of Tiger King data. Specifically, I will be looking at tweets under #FreeJoeExotic. Netflix released Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Maddness on March 20, 2020 and it was until the 22nd that the hashtag was born. I will perform a quantitative advance search provided by Twitter’s platform to collect #FreeJoeExotic data beginning March 22. I will gather the first 10 tweets every other day for two weeks until April 4. Once this data is collected, it will then be coded and organized into categories. Finally, the data will undergo a qualitative and rhetorical analysis.
There is no evidence that this is the methodological best practice. However, there are some convincing elements to why I chose this method. First, I chose Twitter over other platforms because it is conveniently equipped with the advance search tool. This will let me go back in to search the time frame I have designed. Second, Tiger King sat as Netflix’s #1 show for 15 days straight from March 22 to April 6. The time frame of my data selection covers the window from when #FreeJoeExotic was born through its apex and fall. Third, a qualitative and rhetorical analysis is necessary to reveal why and how people are coping with Tiger King chaos.
DIGITAL CATHARSIS 