Teenage "Drama" on Twitter

In The Drama! Teen Conflict, Gossip, and Bullying in Networked Publics, Alice Marwick and danah boyd explore the distinction between bullying and “’drama”.  According to Marwick and boyd, teenagers prefer the term “drama” because it allows them to frame their social conflicts without acknowledging the perpetrator/victim dynamic that is included in the definition of bullying.  This enables teens to protect themselves from the social and psychological harm that may potentially result from accounting for the hurt that they are either feeling or causing others to feel.  Teenagers ultimately wish to be seen as mature individuals, and by rejecting terms like “bullying” which imply childishness and immaturity and replacing them with their own terms such as “drama”, they may feel empowered and in control of their own narrative.  In addition, drama functions as an investment in status for many teenagers, as they organize their social structure through the use of information as social capital.  Having recently witnessed an online bullying situation, I would say that I definitely agree with many of the characteristics of “drama” that Marwick and boyd have outlined.

As a teenager, I was fortunate enough to avoid the majority of the drama floating around my high school and social group.  However, I have still experienced typical teenage drama through situations experienced by my 16-year-old cousin.  Several months ago, my cousin made the decision to end two long friendships, as she had grown increasingly uncomfortable with her friends’ disrespect for her parents and classmates.  Unfortunately, these teenagers’ disrespect and hatred was then redirected toward my cousin.  Rather than quietly accepting that they had drifted apart, my cousin’s former friends took to Twitter and spent the next several months of her life publishing a steady stream of rumors and vicious remarks about my cousin.  My cousin has never publicly addressed the conflict and was never anything but a loyal friend toward these two people, yet their posting against her on Twitter, which began in February and is still continuing, has included accusations of everything from turning people against them to stealing their ex-boyfriends.

 

The preference for the term “drama” is clearly visible in the example below; and when one onlooker attempted to step in, these individuals immediately switched the terminology from “bullying” to “drama”.  My cousin’s former friends feel comfortable and entitled to continue their written assault because drama is seen by teenagers as something that is to be risen above rather than something rude, painful, and damaging.  The issue of the immaturity implied by bullying claims is also clear, and these two people, though acting in an undeniably childish manner, were quick to reinforce each other’s ‘adult’ attitudes after being accused of bullying.

 

  

The performance element of drama is also an obvious factor in this situation.  These individuals show a sense of awareness that it is difficult to distinguish between truth and lies on the internet, and they use this fact to suggest to others that they have information about my cousin that could help them climb the teenage social ladder.  Because the truth isn’t something that would attract an audience, these teens work to alter their social media reality and make the conflict more interesting to onlookers.