Common contrarian culture: Instagram at Warwick

Supposedly, there’s a man in the Koan. How could we have been so ignorant of this flagrant injustice for all these years? How he’s survived in there is, of course, a mystery to science. Perhaps some of Warwick’s incredible STEM scholars can stop engaging in the irrelevant, like discovering new planets, and focus on the poignant questions here on campus.

Shifting past these miraculous developments to the actual subject of this article, it is clear to any Warwick student who frequents Instagram that the University has an expansive number of odd-bod accounts on the platform, from the aforementioned Man In Koan and its cultish sibling Warwick Koan, to the popular gossip of Warwick Tea and newcomers like the traumatising Warwick Smut. With humour at Warwick becoming increasingly digital, insular, and anonymous, an obvious question rears its head: why?

In short, anonymous contrarianism. These accounts lack public-facing accountability in their delivery of humour, allowing for a particularly distinctive, if not objectively odd, comedic tone, unburdened by public judgment. If you wanted to express your quirky, niche humour to the world without it being tied back to you, an odd little Instagram account seems the perfect way to do it, particularly while loosely pursuing your degree. It’s hardly a standard pastime, but as youth humour becomes increasingly surreal, so does the way in which said humour has to be expressed, particularly in this social media judgment era. The result of peculiar humour and insecurity to publicly express it? An Instagram account, apparently. Freedom from accountability enables comedic expression in weird ways.

This system works strictly because of mutually-assured social destruction, with both the Warwick Tea admins and those providing submissions wanting to engage in pot-stirring

Anonymisation has other benefits too. Warwick Tea is probably the most popular of the Warwick Instagram accounts, and if you somehow haven’t heard of it (or you’re a fortunate non-Warwick attendee), here’s how it works. Reams of completely anonymous submissions are made public in long lists with associated submission numbers, allowing anything and everything, from lurid tales of degeneracy to cross-party political barf.

Sometimes these comments even lead to cross-submission conversations or all-out spewing matches, often sent into various flat and society group chats as a routinised part of day-to-day Warwick culture. This system only functions because of the anonymity of submissions; initialisms are often used for people in discussion, but the individual who sent in the submission is always labelled solely as an unidentifiable number. This system works strictly because of mutually-assured social destruction, with both the Warwick Tea admins and those providing submissions wanting to engage in pot-stirring without being publicly known as such. The allure of gossip, combined with an incognitio platform, maintains the joy of relishing secrets and half-truths while mitigating risk, thereby fostering a campus-wide culture of little tête-à-tête.

Though these stipulations seem remarkably simple, anonymous expression is an internet freedom that is increasingly exercised today. Most people have, at some point, run a childhood YouTube channel or social media account while hiding any identifying information. Many continue to do so, and the combination of this ongoing trend, the rise of ironic detachment in everyday humour, and a University social bubble creates Rootes Debauchery, and other funny (and distinctly unfunny) endeavours like them. Though these sorts of accounts are by no means unique to Warwick, they hold a particular prominence here, offering non-attendees a unique window into our funny, manufactured culture of alcoholism, gossip, and the now sadly deceased Rootes Grocery store. I’m sure it stirs nothing but vindication in their choice of university.

Though Warwick is only one petri dish, albeit a large one, it demonstrates wider processes at play in the digitised sphere of humour

The only thing this relatively straightforward thesis can’t truly rationalise is the meteoric rise of Warwick Sigma Society – but it’ll take a greater man than I to take on whatever that is. I’m still trying to explain to friends at home why we take Quidditch so seriously at this University, let alone wrap my head around another uncanny oddity.

While these accounts are no doubt comedy gold to some and kooky nonsense to others, this debate is rather superfluous. Firstly, humour is subjective, but more importantly, the phenomenon of common contrarian culture and its widespread infiltration of anonymised social media is here to stay. The debate surrounding anonymous humour as a positive or negative force is similarly futile, given that it is likely to continue to grow in prominence regardless, but it is worth considering. As with most binary questions, the answer lies somewhere in the balance. Anonymous humour can free comedy from the constraints of overbearing scrutiny, but can similarly bring everything into the comedic domain, leaving nothing sacred (even that which ought to remain so). If nothing else, it at least makes me feel good about myself; read Warwick Tea, and face the horrors of decaying morality. You’ll feel beautifully normal, too.

Though Warwick is only one petri dish, albeit a large one, it demonstrates wider processes at play in the digitised sphere of humour. In this social media age, in which accountability can feel overly intrusive as a result of damning social judgment, humour will continue to excel in the shy corners of the world where unique localised comedy can flourish, anonymised.