“White feminism ruins the party again”: a case study of the rise and fall of the My Favorite Murder Facebook fan group

ABSTRACT

This paper employs digital ethnographic methods to explore the Facebook fan group for the popular podcast My Favorite Murder. We argue that the My Favorite Murder podcast and Facebook group, while providing a potentially unique feminist online space for its members in its early days, quickly devolved into a toxic space rife with conflict and ultimately destroyed by white-centred feminism and white supremacy. We explore failed gatekeeping practices in relation to other Facebook podcast fan groups that have met a similar demise. Finally, we question whether truly inclusive anti-racist feminist spaces can exist in capitalistic models of media production and consumption.

KEYWORDS:

• White feminism
• white supremacy
• podcasts
• Facebook
• racism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jennifer Billinson

Jennifer Billinson (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Communication and Media at Nazareth College with a research focus on digital media culture and popular music.

Bek Orr

Bek Orr (they/them) is an Assistant Professor of Womens’ and Gender Studies and Sociology at SUNY Brockport. Their methodological expertise is digital ethnographies with a research focus on LGBTQIA+ cultures, histories, and archives.