The Empire of outrage: Topical systems at the death of Cecil the lion

ABSTRACT

This article employs the topographical metaphors of terrain and territory to examine how, upon the 2015 death of Cecil the lion at the hands of the dentist Walter Palmer, outrage was channeled into and captured by digital topoi. Digital rhetoric is organized into a topical system that is topographical, composed of not just “places” but “levels” that organize and orient rhetorical expressions into particular topoi. Users “navigate” and “move” through the channels of the digital topical system, and in the process arrive at or pass by topoi. I further argue that the digital topical system is composed of the terrain of digital spaces and the territory of global capitalism. The terrain of digital spaces shapes digital rhetoric through material affordances, cultural conventions, and the power of institutional logics. Digital rhetoric is further shaped by the macro-level territorial accretions of political and economic power in Empire. By mapping the topoi present in the case of Cecil the lion’s death, I show how scholars can better understand and articulate the ways that power ossifies into a digital topical system that shapes contemporary discourses.

KEYWORDS:

• Topoi
• outrage
• digital rhetoric
• capitalism
• topography

Notes

1 Peta Thornycroft and Guy Hedgecoe, “Zimbabwe’s Favourite Lion Cecil Killed by Hunter from ‘North America,’” The Telegraph, July 26, 2015, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/11764395/Zimbabwes-favourite-lion-Cecil-killed-by-hunter-from-North-America.html; “Zimbabwe’s ‘Iconic’ Lion Cecil Killed by Hunter,” BBC, July 27, 2015, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-33674087; Harriet Alexander, Peta Thornycroft, and Aislinn Laing, “Cecil the Lion’s Killer Revealed as American Dentist,” The Telegraph, July 28, 2015, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/11767119/Cecil-the-lions-killer-revealed-as-American-dentist.HTML.

2 “A Year in Search 2015,” Google Trends, https://trends.google.com/trends/story/2015_GLOBAL (accessed September 27, 2018).

3 “How the Internet Descended on the Man Who Killed Cecil the Lion,” BBC, July 29, 2015, https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-33694075.

4 Christina Capecchi and Katie Rogers, “Killer of Cecil the Lion Finds out That He Is a Target Now, of Internet Vigilantism,” New York Times, July 29, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/30/us/cecil-the-lion-walter-palmer.html; “Where Is Walter Palmer? Lion-Killing Dentist Disappears as Protesters Rally Outside His Home,” Vice, July 29, 2015, https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wja58x/where-is-walter-palmer-lion-killing-dentist-disappears-as-protesters-rally-outside-his-home; Arin Greenwood, “Dentist Who Killed Cecil The Lion Could Be Extradited to Zimbabwe,” The Huffington Post, July 29, 2015, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/walter-palmer-extradition_n_55b8ce10e4b0a13f9d1ad47d.

5 Jani Actman, “Cecil the Lion Died One Year Ago – Here’s What’s Happened Since,” National Geographic, June 30, 2016, https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/animals/cecil-the-lion-died-one-year-agoheres-whats-happened-since.aspx; David W. Macdonald, Kim S. Jacobsen, Dawn Burnham, Paul J. Johnson, and Andrew J. Loveridge, “Cecil: A Moment or a Movement? Analysis of Media Coverage of the Death of a Lion, Panthera leo,” Animals 6, no. 5 (2016): 1–13, doi:10.3390/ani6050026.

6 Aristotle, On Rhetoric, trans. George Kennedy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 44–5.

7 Michal Leff, “Topical Invention and Metaphoric Interaction,” Southern Communication Journal 48, no. 3 (1983): 214–29, at 220, doi:10.1080/10417948309372566.

8 Cara A. Finnegan, “Studying Visual Modes of Public Address: Lewis Hine’s Progressive-Era Child Labor Rhetoric,” in The Handbook of Rhetoric and Public Address, ed. Shawn Parry-Giles and J. Michael Hogan (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2010), 254.

9 Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1969); Sonja K. Foss, Karen A. Foss, and Robert Trapp, Contemporary Perspectives on Rhetoric (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, Inc., 1991).

10 Casey Boyle, Rhetoric as Posthuman Practice (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2018), 131.

11 Boyle, Rhetoric as Posthuman Practice, 131: “Aristotle offers the first sustained engagement with topoi as both a rhetorical procedure for generating arguments and as a system to manage argumentative materials” (emphasis in original).

12 John E. Richardson, (Mis)Representing Islam: The Racism and Rhetoric of British Broadsheet Newspapers (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co., 2004).

13 W. J. T. Mitchell, The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post Photographic Era (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992), 8. See also: Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), 31.

14 Jay David Bolter, “Remediation,” in The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media, ed. Marie-Laure Ryan, Lori Emerson, and Benjamin J. Robertson (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), 427–8.

15 Marie-Laure Ryan, “Spatiality of Digital Media,” in The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media, eds. Marie-Laure Ryan, Lori Emerson, and Benjamin J. Robertson (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), 470–3.

16 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000).

17 John Durham Peters, The Marvelous Clouds: Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 38.

18 Michael Calvin McGee, “Text, Context, and the Fragmentation of Contemporary Culture,” Western Journal of Speech Communication 54, no. 3 (1990): 274–89, doi:10.1080/10570319009374343.

19 Paul N. Edwards, The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1996), 148.

20 Robert K. Logan, “The Biological Foundation of Media Ecology,” Explorations in Media Ecology 6, no. 1 (2007): 19–34; Douglas Eyman, Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, Practice (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2015); David L. Altheide, An Ecology of Communication: Cultural Formats of Control (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1995); Peters, The Marvelous Clouds, 2.

21 Catherine Chaput, “Rhetorical Circulation in Late Capitalism: Neoliberalism and the Overdetermination of Affective Energy,” Philosophy & Rhetoric 43, no. 1 (2010): 1–25, doi:10.5325/philrhet.43.1.0001.

22 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), 3.

23 James F. Klumpp, “Argumentative Ecology,” Argumentation and Advocacy 45, no. 4 (2009): 183–97, doi:10.1080/00028533.2009.11821707; Jenny Edbauer, “Unframing Models of Public Distribution: From Rhetorical Situation to Rhetorical Ecologies,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 35, no. 4 (2005): 5–24, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40232607; Boyle, Rhetoric as Posthuman Practice, 43.

24 G. Thomas Goodnight, “Rhetoric, Communication, and Information,” Poroi 10, no. 1 (2014): 1–21, at 12, doi:10.13008/2151-2957.1185.

25 Jussi Parikka, Digital Contagions: A Media Archaeology of Computer Viruses (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2007); Peta Mitchell, Contagious Metaphor (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012); Tony D. Sampson, Virality: Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012).

26 Jussi Parikka, Insect Media: An Archaeology of Animals and Technology (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010).

27 There is a strong tradition, especially from science and technology scholars like Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, and Jane Bennet, to talk about systems and networks of culture/nature as the synthesis between living and non-living actants. While evocative and important to my own understanding of digital networks, their disciplinary-driven deconstruction of the nature/culture divide is still premised on an organic metaphor for systems, even if those systems contain non-organic elements or the boundaries between them are constructed and impermanent.

28 Rosi Braidotti, “A Theoretical Framework for the Critical Posthumanities,” Theory, Culture & Society 36, no. 6 (2019): 31–61, at 33, doi:10.1177/0263276418771486.

29 Lynda Walsh and Casey Boyle, “From Intervention to Invention: Introducing Topological Techniques,” in Topologies as Techniques for a Post-Critical Rhetoric, ed. Lynda Walsh and Casey Boyle (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 3.

30 Safiya Umoja Noble, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (New York: New York University Press, 2018).

31 Alexander R. Galloway and Eugene Thacker, The Exploit: A Theory of Networks (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007); Johan Söderberg and Adam Netzén, “When All That Is Theory Melts into (Hot) Air: Contrasts and Parallels between Actor Network Theory, Autonomist Marxism, and Open Marxism,” Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization 10, no. 2 (2010): 95–118, http://www.ephemerajournal.org/contribution/when-all-theory-melts-hot-air-contrasts-and-prallels-between-actor-network-theory; Luke Stark and Kate Crawford, “The Conservatism of Emoji: Work, Affect, and Communication,” Social Media + Society 1, no. 2 (2015): 1–11, doi:10.1177/2056305115604853; Alf Hornborg, “Post-Capitalist Ecologies: Energy, ‘Value’ and Fetishism in the Anthropocene,” Capitalism Nature Socialism 27, no. 4 (2016): 61–76, doi:10.1080/10455752.2016.1196229; Alf Hornborg, “Artifacts Have Consequences, Not Agency: Toward a Critical Theory of Global Environmental History,” European Journal of Social Theory 20, no. 1 (2017): 95–110, doi:10.1177/1368431016640536; Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet: Platforms, Content Moderation, and the Hidden Decisions That Shape Social Media (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018); Alf Hornborg, “Colonialism in the Anthropocene: The Political Ecology of the Money-Energy-Technology Complex,” Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 10, no. 1 (2019): 7–21, doi:10.4337/jhre.2019.01.01.

32 Goodnight, “Rhetoric, Communication, and Information,” 12.

33 Timothy Barney, Mapping the Cold War: Cartography and the Framing of America’s International Power (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015); James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998).

34 Braidotti, “A Theoretical Framework for the Critical Posthumanities,” 34.

35 Leah A. Lievrouw, “Materiality and Media in Communication and Technology Studies: An Unfinished Project,” in Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society, eds. Tarleton Gillespie, Pablo J. Boczkowski, and Kirsten A. Foot (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014), 45.

36 Lievrouw, “Materiality and Media.”

37 Lievrouw, “Materiality and Media,” 49.

38 Hardt and Negri argue that our contemporary moment is typified by governance by global capitalism—what they term “Empire.” Empire is composed of three tiers: (1) sovereignty, where the United States reigns through the ideology of its constitution and its “hegemony over the global use of force”; (2) aristocracy, where transnational corporations control flows of capital, technology, and populations; and (3) the “multitude” of people that are filtered through mechanisms of representation into structures of global power. See: Hardt and Negri, Empire, 167, 309.

39 Walter Jost and Michael J. Hyde, “Introduction: Rhetoric and Hermeneutics: Places along the Way,” in Rhetoric and Hermeneutics in Our Time: A Reader, ed. Walter Jost and Michael J. Hyde (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), 13.

40 Sara Rubinelli, “Aristotle’s Topoi and Idia as a Map of Discourse,” in Topologies as Techniques for a Post-Critical Rhetoric, eds. Lynda Walsh and Casey Boyle (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 18.

41 Boyle, Rhetoric as Posthuman Practice; Jeff Rice, Digital Detroit: Rhetoric and Space in the Age of the Network (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2012), 11–12.

42 Boyle, Rhetoric as Posthuman Practice, 128.

43 Boyle, Rhetoric as Posthuman Practice, 141.

44 Boyle, Rhetoric as Posthuman Practice, 130.

45 Boyle, Rhetoric as Posthuman Practice, 139; Jost and Hyde, “Introduction: Rhetoric and Hermeneutics,” 13.

46 Erkki Huhtamo, “Dismantling the Fairy Engine: Media Archaeology as Topos Study,” in Media Archaeology: Approaches, Applications and Implications, eds. Erkki Huhtamo and Jussi Parikka (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 28.

47 Huhtamo, “Dismantling the Fairy Engine,” 34.

48 G. Thomas Goodnight, “The Metapolitics of the 2002 Iraq Debate: Public Policy and the Network Imaginary,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 13, no. 1 (2010): 65–94, at 68, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41955591.

49 Damien Smith Pfister, Networked Media, Networked Rhetorics: Attention and Deliberation in the Early Blogosphere (State College: Penn State University Press, 2014), 60, 84; Edwin Black, “Secrecy and Disclosure as Rhetorical Forms,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 74, no. 2 (1988): 133–50, at 133, doi:10.1080/00335638809383833.

50 Douglas Mitchell, “Special Review Essay: Rhetoric: Essays in Invention & Discovery,” Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric 6, no. 4 (1988): 395–414, doi:10.1525/rh.1988.6.4.395; Black, “Secrecy and Disclosure.”

51 Richardson, (Mis)Representing Islam.

52 Eric S. Jenkins, “The Modes of Visual Rhetoric: Circulating Memes as Expressions,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 100, no. 4 (2014): 442–66, doi:10.1080/00335630.2014.989258.

53 Paul M. Leonardi, “Materiality, Sociomateriality, and Socio-Technical Systems: What Do These Terms Mean? How Are They Different? Do We Need Them?” in Materiality and Organizing: Social Interaction in a Technological World, ed. Paul M. Leonardi, Bonnie A. Nardi, and Jannis Kallinikos (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 2012), 29.

54 Leonardi, “Materiality, Sociomateriality, and Socio-Technical Systems,” 31.

55 Langdon Winner, The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 29; Judy Wajcman, “Feminist Theories of Technology,” Cambridge Journal of Economics 34, no. 1 (2010): 143–52, at 147.

56 In this way, as Damien Pfister argues, digital networked rhetorics both maintain and change the ways in which the public sphere and cultural imaginaries function in society. Cultures “craft collective attention patterns” and mark certain kinds of rhetoric as recognizable or worthy of broader attention. Pfister, Networked Media, 4.

57 Peters, The Marvelous Clouds, 15.

58 Peters, The Marvelous Clouds, 2.

59 Peters, The Marvelous Clouds, 377.

60 Boyle, Rhetoric as Posthuman Practice, 155.

61 Even commentators noted and critiqued it. See Frida Ghitis, “How Outrage over Cecil the Lion Killing Misses the Point,” CNN, August 3, 2015, https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/31/opinions/ghitis-cecil-outrage/index.html; Jason G. Goldman, “Why Did the Death of Cecil the Lion Cause Such an Uproar?” The Guardian, May 5, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/05/why-did-death-of-a-single-lion-cecil-cause-such-an-uproar; Heather Wilhelm, “Opinion: Cecil the Lion and America’s Broken Outrage Meter,” Chicago Tribune, July 31, 2015, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion//commentary/ct-cecil-lion-palmer-zimbabwe-peta-planned-parenthood-abortion-perspec-0731-jm-20150730-story.html; “Cecil the Lion Killing Sparks Outrage around the World,” CBS News, July 29, 2015, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cecil-the-lion-killing-sparks-outrage-around-the-world/; James Hamblin, “My Outrage Is Better Than Your Outrage,” The Atlantic, July 31, 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/07/outrage-rip-cecil-lion/400037/; Ian Tuttle, “Cecil the Lion and the Cultural Perils of Internet Outrage,” National Review, July 30, 2015, https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/07/cecil-lion-zimbabwe-internet-outrage/; Jordan Valinsky, “Outrage and Backlash: #CecilTheLion Racks up 670K Tweets in 24 Hours,” Digiday, July 29, 2015, https://digiday.com/marketing/outrage-backlash-cecilthelion-racks-670k-tweets-24-hours/.

62 James M. Jasper and Jane D. Poulsen, “Recruiting Strangers and Friends: Moral Shocks and Social Networks in Animal Rights and Anti-Nuclear Protests,” Social Problems 42, no. 4 (1995): 493–512, at 498, doi:10.2307/3097043.

63 Jasper and Poulsen, “Recruiting Strangers and Friends,” 505.

64 Jasper and Poulsen, “Recruiting Strangers and Friends,” 495.

65 Sampson, Virality.

66 Anu Koivunen, “Preface: The Affective Turn?” in Conference Proceedings for Affective Encounters: Rethinking Embodiment in Feminist Media Studies, ed. Anu Koivunen and Susanna Paasonen (Turku, Finland: University of Turku, 2001), 7–9.

67 M. J. Crockett, “Moral Outrage in the Digital Age,” Nature Human Behaviour 1 (2017): 769–71, at 769, doi:10.1038/s41562-017-0213-3.

68 Crockett, “Moral Outrage in the Digital Age.”

69 Jeff Rice, “Digital Outragicity,” enculturation 23 (2016), http://enculturation.net/digital_outragicity.

70 Jenny Edbauer Rice, “The New ‘New’: Making a Case for Critical Affect Studies,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 94, no. 2 (2008): 200–12, at 205, doi:10.1080/00335630801975434; Huhtamo, “Dismantling the Fairy Engine,” 28.

71 The Twitter API only allows access to tweets for the past seven days. Accessing anything older requires payment, often hundreds of dollars per search. Part of my interest in a conceptual structure for the analysis of digital texts, however, is identifying the rhetorical force of viral events that have left indelible traces on the internet that are accessible. Scholars can see the flows of affective circulation and the news articles that report on Cecil serve as a kind of historical record. It is from this archive that I draw my materials.

72 Shari Stenberg, “‘Tweet Me Your First Assaults’: Writing Shame and the Rhetorical Work of #NotOkay,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 48, no. 2 (2018): 119–38, at 121, doi:10.1080/02773945.2017.1402126.

73 Steve Proud (@Proudie_Arsenal), Twitter Post, July 28, 2015, cited in Ryan Broderick and Tamerra Griffin, “People Are Flooding This Dentist’s Facebook after He Was Named as the Hunter Who Killed Cecil the Lion,” Buzzfeed News, July 28, 2015, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/this-is-whats-happening-to-the-dentist-who-allegedly-killed.

74 MatterMote (@MatterMote), Twitter Post, July 28, 2015, https://twitter.com/MatterMote/status/626044061502324738, cited in Broderick and Griffin, “People Are Flooding.”

75 hardeep singh kohli (@misterhsk), Twitter Post, July 28, 2015, https://twitter.com/misterhsk/status/626037924279230464, cited in Broderick and Griffin, “People Are Flooding.”

76 Sarah Kaufman and Adi Cohen, “The American Dentist Who Reportedly Killed Cecil The Lion Is Getting Trashed Online,” Vocativ, July 28, 2015, https://www.vocativ.com/news/215852/the-american-dentist-who-reportedly-killed-cecil-the-lion-is-getting-trashed-online/index.html. In light of such overwhelming negativity, the Facebook page was deleted after a few days. See: Broderick and Griffin, “People Are Flooding.” Similarly, after River Bluff Dental’s address, website, and phone number were widely shared through digital platforms, the practice’s website was pulled offline. See: “The Hunting of Walter Palmer: Internet Goes after ‘Lion Killer’ US Dentist,” RT, July 28, 2015, https://www.rt.com/usa/311002-dentist-lion-internet-hunt/.

77 “Cecil the Lion was Skinned and His Head Removed. Hwange - A Well-Known and Much-Photographed Black-Maned Lion Affectionately Named Cecil Was Killed by Sport Hunters Just outside Hwange in Zimbabwe Last Week,” Reddit, July 21, 2015, https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3e1lfv/cecil_the_lion_was_skinned_and_his_head_removed/.

78 Cavan Sieczkowski, “Fury Erupts after Walter Palmer Is Named as Cecil the Lion’s Killer,” The Huffington Post, July 29, 2015, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/walter-palmer-cecil-lion-killer_n_55b8dda7e4b0a13f9d1ae431.

79 Yelp’s policy is to delete reviews motivated by media events, but that did not seem to deter users from leaving reviews as a form of commentary. See: “How the Internet Descended.”

80 “How the Internet Descended.”

81 Review by user “Mina H.,” Yelp, March 27, 2016, http://www.yelp.com/biz/river-bluff-dental-bloomington.

82 Jackie Frere, “Cecil the Lion: Ariana Grande, MC Hammer & More Celebs Blast Dentist Accused of Killing Famous Lion,” Billboard, July 28, 2015, https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6648378/cecil-lion-dentist-walter-palmer-celebrity-reaction.

83 The BBC noted that this was one of the most popular tweets two days following Palmer’s unveiling, with a combined retweet and favorite total of over 40,000. Since that time, the number has grown. See: “How the Internet Descended.”

84 Ricky Gervais (@RickyGervais), Twitter Post, July 28, 2015, https://twitter.com/rickygervais/status/626087150786719744?lang=en.

85 “There’s Now a Cecil the Lion Beanie Baby,” LOOK, July 30, 2015, https://www.look.co.uk/fashion/celebrities-react-to-cecil-the-lions-death-50631.

86 Richard James, “Jimmy Kimmel Breaks down in Tears while Discussing the Killing of Cecil the Lion,” Buzzfeed, July 29, 2015, https://www.buzzfeed.com/richardhjames/jimmy-kimmel-breaks-down-in-tears-while-discussing-the-killi.

87 Mary Elizabeth Williams, “Jimmy Kimmel Eviscerates ‘A-hole Dentist Who Wants a Lion’s Head Over the Fireplace in His Man Cave,’ Proving He’s Late Night’s True Hero,” Salon, July 29, 2015, https://www.salon.com/2015/07/29/jimmy_kimmel_eviscerates_a_hole_dentist_who_wants_a_lions_head_over_the_fireplace_in_his_man_cave_proving_hes_late_nights_true_hero/. As another example, @KissFromChloe wrote, “#WalterPalmer needs to spend $50,000 on therapy to figure out why killing #animals makes him feel more like a man. #CecilTheLion.” KissFromChloe (@KissFromChloe), Twitter Post, July 28, 2015, https://twitter.com/KissFromChloe/status/626044165445455872, cited in Broderick and Griffin, “People Are Flooding.”

88 Williams, “Jimmy Kimmel Eviscerates.”

89 As Damien Pfister notes, “the instant reply, quick quip, and timely rejoinder were praised in classical times and are newly salient in our own.” Pfister, Networked Media, 82.

90 Felicia Greiff, “Brands Embrace Conservation in Honor of Cecil the Lion,” AdAge, August 5, 2015, https://adage.com/article/news/week-cecil-lion-opportunistic-marketing/299842; Adam H. Graham, “After Killing of Cecil the Lion, Delta Joins Airline Ban on Game Trophies,” New York Times, August 3, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/03/travel/cecil-lion-poaching-hunting-delta-airlines.html.

91 Grieff, “Brands Embrace.”

92 Grieff, “Brands Embrace.”

93 Michael E. Miller, “PETA Calls for Walter Palmer to be ‘Hanged’ for Killing Cecil the Lion,” Washington Post, July 30, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/07/30/peta-calls-for-walter-palmer-to-be-hanged-for-killing-cecil-the-lion/.

94 Bob Franken, “Palmer Deserves Punishment, But We Should Question Abhorrent Habits That Devalue Life,” The Montana Standard, August 3, 2015, https://mtstandard.com/news/opinion/columnists/palmer-deserves-punishment-but-we-should-question-abhorrent-habits-that/article_dbe401dd-f017-5c2c-b088-9dae3c5899fc.html; Neil Clark, “Let’s Turn the Tables on Trophy Hunters – and Get Justice for Cecil the Lion,” RT, July 31, 2015, https://www.rt.com/op-ed/311258-cecil-lion-africa-hunter/. As Conor Friedersdorf noted a year before: it seems that commentators write on stories in order to “maximize the offense, outrage, and umbrage-taking from their readers.” Although Friedersdorf’s claims are perhaps reductionist, it is worth noting that in a rhetorical economy where attention is a scare resource, finding new and headline-grabbing ways of commenting on Cecil would be institutionally encouraged. See: Conor Friedersdorf, “Rage against the Outrage Machine,” The Atlantic, June 23, 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/06/rage-against-the-outrage-machine/373069/.

95 Alexander Smith and Sean Federico-O’Murchu, “Cecil the Lion Killer Walter James Palmer Has Bear-Related Felony Record,” NBC News, July 29, 2015, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/cecil-lion-killer-walter-james-palmer-has-bear-related-felony-n400226.

96 “US, EU: Save Africa’s Lions,” Avaaz.org Petition, https://secure.avaaz.org/en/save_africas_lions_loc/.

97 Ruth McD, “Demand Justice for Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe,” Care2 Petition, http://www.thepetitionsite.com/821/738/351/.

98 Cheryl Semcer, “Justice for Cecil the Iconic Collared Lion Slaughtered by Trophy Hunter in Zimbabwe!” Change.org Petition, https://www.change.org/p/justice-for-cecil-the-iconic-collared-lion-slaughtered-by-trophy-hunter. Although the same individuals could have signed all three petitions, these numbers still point to the breadth of responses.

99 Dan Bilefsky, “Zimbabwe Official Urges Extradition of Dentist Who Killed Cecil the Lion,” New York Times, July 31, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/01/world/africa/zimbabwe-cecil-lion-walter-palmer.html; Meena Jang, “White House Petition to Extradite Cecil the Lion Killer Surpasses 100,000 Signature Goal,” The Hollywood Reporter, July 29, 2015, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cecil-lion-petition-extradite-walter-811935; Tessa Berenson, “Petition to Extradite Cecil the Lion’s Killer Signed by 100,000,” Time, July 30, 2015, https://time.com/3978922/cecil-the-lion-white-house-petition/.

100 Marc Eaton, “Manufacturing Community in an Online Activist Organization: The Rhetoric of MoveOn.org’s E-mails,” Information, Communication & Society 13, no. 2 (2010): 174–92, doi:10.1080/13691180902890125.

101 We the People, “A Response to Your Petition Regarding Cecil the Lion,” archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20161027045750/https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/extradite-minnesotan-walter-james-palmer-face-justice-zimbabwe.

102 Katie Rogers, “After Cecil the Lion’s Killing, U.S. and U.N. Look to Take Action,” New York Times, July 30, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/31/world/africa/after-cecil-the-lions-killing-us-and-un-look-to-take-action.html.

103 As NPR reported, state investigators could find no truth to the anti-abortion activist claims, and in fact a grand jury indicted the activists for using fake driver’s licenses. Danielle Kurtzleben, “Planned Parenthood Investigations Find No Fetal Tissue Sales,” NPR, January 28, 2016, https://www.npr.org/2016/01/28/464594826/in-wake-of-videos-planned-parenthood-investigations-find-no-fetal-tissue-sales; Jennifer Ludden, “Anti-Abortion Activists Indicted on Felony Charges in Planned Parenthood Case,” NPR, January 26, 2016, https://www.npr.org/2016/01/26/464469813/anti-abortion-activists-indicted-on-felony-charges-in-planned-parenthood-case.

104 darrentyler (@darrentyler), Twitter Post, July 29, 2015.

105 Marco Rubio (@marcorubio), Twitter Post, July 29, 2015, https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/626454765275361281.

106 Katie Yoder, “Nets Covered Cecil the Lion More in 1 Day Than Abortion Videos in 2 Weeks,” NewsBusters, July 29, 2015, https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/katie-yoder/2015/07/29/nets-covered-cecil-lion-more-1-day-abortion-vids-2-weeks.

107 Roxane Gay (@rgay), Twitter Post, July 29, 2015, cited in Jon Levine, “One Tweet Nails the Unsettling Truth about Our Obsession with Cecil the Lion,” Mic, July 29, 2015, https://www.mic.com/articles/123095/one-tweet-shows-the-different-response-between-cecil-the-lion-and-sandra-bland.

108 Julia Craven and Kim Bellware, “We Weep for African Lions. But What about Black Lives?” The Huffington Post, July 29, 2015, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cecil-black-lives_n_55b9482ce4b095423d0dc4d5.

109 Craven and Bellware, “We Weep.”

110 Maria Puente, “Fury over Cecil the Lion Also Sparks Race Conversation,” USA Today, July 29, 2015, https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2015/07/29/fury-over-cecil-lion-also-sparks-race-conversation/30828275/.

111 Puente, “Fury over Cecil the Lion.”

112 Independent Voices (@IndyVoices), Twitter Post, July 29, 2015, https://twitter.com/IndyVoices/status/626401337278906368/photo/1.

113 Erin Logan, “Maybe You Should Care about Black People as Much as You Care about Cecil The Lion,” Blavity, July 29, 2015, https://blavity.com/maybe-you-should-care-about-black-people-as-much-as-you-care-about-cecil-the-lion/.

114 Sarah Chiwaya (@Curvily), Twitter Post, July 28, 2015, https://twitter.com/Curvily/status/626205102471278593.

115 Beenish Ahmed, “Twitter Uses #AllLionsMatter to Mock Race Baiting over Black Lives Matter,” Think Progress, July 31, 2015, https://thinkprogress.org/twitter-uses-alllionsmatter-to-mock-race-baiting-over-black-lives-matter-38fe36a1dd5d/.

116 Kenneth Burke, Permanence and Change: An Anatomy of Purpose, 3rd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 74.

117 “What Cecil the Lion Means to Zimbabwe,” BBC, July 30, 2015, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-33722688.

118 Reuters, “‘What Lion?’ Zimbabweans Ask, amid Global Cecil Circus,” Newsweek, July 30, 2015, https://www.newsweek.com/what-lion-zimbabweans-ask-amid-global-cecil-circus-358414; Kennedy Mavhumashava, “Cecil: What’s Going on?” The Zimbabwe Chronicle, July 30, 2015, https://www.chronicle.co.zw/cecil-whats-going-on/.

119 Alex Magaisa, “Reflections on Our Cecil, the Zimbabwean Lion,” The ZimbabweHerald, July 30, 2015, https://www.herald.co.zw/reflections-on-our-cecil-the-zimbabwean-lion/.

120 “Out of Hiding: Cecil the Lion’s Killer Returns to Work,” RT, September 8, 2015, https://www.rt.com/usa/314750-cecil-killer-dentist-work/.

121 Alexander Smith, “Cecil the Lion: Zimbabwe Lifts Hunting Ban after Just 10 Days,” NBC News, August 10, 2015, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/cecil-lion-zimbabwe-lifts-hunting-ban-after-just-10-days-n406971.

122 “Zimbabwe Asks US to Extradite Dentist Lion Killer,” RT, August 1, 2015, https://www.rt.com/usa/311319-lion-extradition-hunt-american/.

123 MacDonald Dzirutwe, “Zimbabwe Will Not Charge U.S. Dentist for Killing Cecil the Lion,” Reuters, October 12, 2015, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-zimbabwe-wildlife-dentist/zimbabwe-will-not-charge-u-s-dentist-for-killing-cecil-the-lion-idUSKCN0S61G320151012.

124 Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), 38.

125 Bennett, Vibrant Matter, 38.

126 Jodie Nicotra, “Disgust, Distributed: Virtual Public Shaming as Epideictic Assemblage,” enculturation 22 (2016), http://enculturation.net/disgust-distributed.

127 Manuel Castells, Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age (New York: Wiley, 2012), 14.

128 Jiyeon Kang, Igniting the Internet: Youth and Activism in Postauthoritarian South Korea (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2016), 8–11.

129 Hardt and Negri, Empire, 321.

130 Hardt and Negri, Empire, 399.

131 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (New York: The Penguin Press, 2004); Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Assembly (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).

132 Hardt and Negri, Assembly, 117.

133 Hardt and Negri, Empire, 320, 404.