Researching influencers, internet fame, and (shitty) digital futures: an ethical provocation

Dirt, rot, slop, shit, trash, and more have emerged as ways to describe deteriorating conditions of social media spaces. Ugliness has gone mainstream in digital societies. Less is known, however, about the more subtle ways this creeps into internet culture – and the researchers studying it. This reflexive and personal commentary is an ethical provocation for internet researchers to think about how we can study the toxic internet without becoming toxic ourselves. Drawing on the author’s own experiences conducting a four-year long digital ethnography into viral events, influencers, and content creators, this article engages with the Chinese practice Ruzhui as a methodological tool for living with ambivalence while studying the online world.