“I Never Liked Him”: Ryan Adams and the Toxification of Masculinity in the Post-MeToo Digital Era

Abstract

This article explores the Twitter response to reports of abusive behavior by U.S.-based singer-songwriter Ryan Adams. Using a combination of quantitative data analysis techniques and close textual and contextual analysis, I analyze an archive of more than 130,000 tweets taken from the week prior to the initial reporting of Adams’s behavior in February 2019 and continuing until March 2021. On one hand, this archive of tweets illustrates the general value of Twitter as a component of “networked feminism,” in the sense that these tweets generally call attention to and criticize Adams’s inappropriate behavior. However, the overall response to Adams’s allegations also demonstrates both the limitations of Twitter for addressing MeToo-related stories and the problems of the frame of “toxic masculinity” in approaching these issues. Stressing the “toxicity” of these behaviors can serve to reinforce a normative, hegemonic understanding of “healthy” masculinity that masks the institutional forms of oppression that allow hegemonic masculinity to function.

Keywords:

• Networked feminism
• sexual misconduct
• toxic masculinity
• Twitter

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Marissa Doshi and the reviewers of Women’s Studies in Communication for their suggestions and edits on drafts of this article; and thanks to Jennifer Reinwald and Aaron Brenner for the productive conversations that helped in the development of this research project.