Donovan Adams

DONOVAN ADAMS, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, received a grant in April 2022 to aid research on “Use of Anthropology in Extremist Audiovisual Social Media Platforms.” Early anthropological research was often focused on typological classifications of racial groups and males and females in an attempt to create essentialist classificatory schemes. As such, this research has often been used by racial and gender extremists to reinforce prejudicial views. Despite anthropology’s efforts in addressing problematic research and practice, much of historical and modern anthropology remains subject to weaponization and various groups of people have developed a deep mistrust of the discipline (and broader academia). This project explores how online, public spaces interact with anthropological information in the production of prejudicial ideas, create and maintain extremist communities, and view academic disciplines. As a part of this project: 1) Metadata including comments, likes, views, and more were downloaded for approximately 2800 YouTube channels and over 2.2 million videos; 2) Metadata including comments, likes, shares, videos, and more were collected for approximately 550,000 TikToks; 3) Initial results were presented in presentations at the American Anthropological Association, American Association of Biological Anthropologists, and the American Academy of Forensic Sciences; 4) the PI and research assistants have begun investigating emerging themes of Cultural Marxism, weaponization of anthropology (particularly forensic anthropology and broader biological anthropology and archaeology) to justify misogynistic and racist rhetoric; 5) databases containing the metadata for both YouTube and TikTok are currently under construction. The data for this project will aid anthropologists in effective and ethical teaching, research, and public engagement, as well as assist in understanding the cultural worldviews of these extremist groups and assist with deradicalization.