Satire,racist humour and the power of (un)laughter: On the restrained nature of Swedish online racist discourse targeting EU-migrants begging for money

Research background: online racism, restrained or unrestrained?

Discursively oriented research has stressed the subtle and indirect nature of contemporary racist discourse. For example, denials and disclaimers often precede articulations of racism, and rhetorical strategies are often used to communicate racism without explicitly derogatory words for migrants and minorities (e.g. Bonilla-Silva, 2014; Van Dijk, 1992, 2000). This is due to norms against explicitly expressing racism (e.g. Billig, 2001; Bonilla-Silva, 2014; Feagin, 2013) and feelings of superiority (Wouters, 1998, 2007) in contemporary Western societies, making subtle communication necessary in ‘frontstage’ settings (Picca and Feagin, 2007).

However, this discursive requirement of ‘political correctness’ is commonly suggested not to hold online. For instance, comparing online forum discussions with a public meeting, Coffey and Woolworth (2004) argue that ‘the anonymity the Internet affords gives prejudiced people license to publicly express racial attitudes’, while ‘communication in the physical presence of others does tend to bring about restraint’ (p. 10). Similar claims are made in other recent research on online racism (e.g. Melican and Dixon, 2008: 152; Steinfeldt et al., 2010: 368). Such arguments echo the notion of ‘online disinhibition’ (e.g. Lapidot-Lefler and Barak, 2012; Suler, 2004), a version of Zimbardo’s (1969) theory of ‘deindividuation’: under anonymous conditions, people lose, or give up, their sense of self and their adherence to norms and expectations of others, whereby their behaviour becomes intensely emotional, impulsive, irrational – that is, unrestrained (Zimbardo, 1969: 253).

Other research, however, suggests that online racist discursive practices are not always unrestrained. Daniels (2009a, 2009b) investigates ‘cloaked websites’, which communicate racist positions in a subtle way that uninformed users might mistake for civil rights discourse. Such ‘coded’ practices in online racist discourse, resulting from increased monitoring of online user comments, lead Hughey and Daniels (2013) to call for a new ‘Racial Internet Literacy’ sensitive to the subtle ‘slang and language of virtual racial invective and messaging’ (p. 338). This article aims to contribute to such literacy by focusing on the use of humorous, particularly satirical, racist discursive practices in Flashback discussions about EU-migrants begging for money.

Furthermore, against ‘online disinhibition’, proponents of the social identity model of deindividuation effects (e.g. Reicher et al., 1995) show that anonymous individuals do not act aggressively towards out-groups due to loss of restraint; rather, individuals are more susceptible to restraint, that is, conformity to in-group norms of hostility towards out-groups, under anonymous online circumstances where their social identities are salient (e.g. Reicher et al., 1995; see also Douglas and McGarty, 2001, 2002; Spears and Lea, 1994). This suggests that online racist articulations are shaped by in-group norms, and not only by general norms of ‘political correctness’, as suggested by the research on racist discourse reviewed above.

However, as suggested by Wetherell and Potter (1992), social identity theory typically ignores how such in-group norms, or normative orders, are accomplished in discursive interactions. This may be said about the ‘online disinhibition’ perspective as well. In contrast, this article aims to analyse not only the subtle ways in which satirical humorous discourse articulates racist positions, whereby ‘political correctness’ is circumnavigated, but also how a racist, in-group normative order is accomplished in humorous discursive practices unfolding in discussions about EU-migrants on Flashback.

(Un)restrained emotion, affective–discursive practice and research on online racist humour

Furthermore, social identity theory tends to ignore affect and emotion (Billig, 2002). The same could be said about the discursive research on racism reviewed so far. ¹ Emotions are part of the original ‘disinhibition’ paradigm, albeit in a problematic way. First, in contrast to this paradigm, hatred and violence against out-groups involve the active repression or restraint of some emotions (notably shame, but also empathy; e.g. Scheff, 1990, 2003, 2004; Turner, 2007; Vetlesen, 2011), while others are actively cultivated. The latter include anger, but also happiness, satisfaction and pride about inflicting harm upon enemies (Turner, 2007; Vetlesen, 2011). This suggests the importance of humour in racist discursive interaction (see below).

Second, the ‘disinhibition’ perspective assumes that emotions are inner, pre-discursive entities restrained by ‘rational’ judgement in non-anonymous settings, but released in anonymous settings (e.g. Zimbardo, 1969: 259). Thus, emotions involved in aggressive behaviour are seen as ‘things’ with certain intrinsic properties that make them inherently irrational to express, regardless of discursive context. This assumption takes a particular normative order of emotional restraint for granted, ignoring that classifying some emotional expressions as ‘irrational’ (or ‘aggressive’ or ‘violent’) is a judgement, rather than an objective description (a similar argument is made by Burkitt, 2014: 4). Such an assumption is less useful when the problem to be investigated is whether and how online racist humorous articulations might be restrained by and involved in accomplishing order.

In contrast, this article approaches online racist discourse as an affective–discursive practice (e.g. Wetherell, 2012, 2013, 2014). Such a perspective treats emotions as inseparable from the ongoing discursive interactions in which they are made meaningful (Wetherell, 2014: 86). Furthermore, it treats the articulation of emotions as inextricably entangled in the accomplishment of ordered patterns of social relationships (Wetherell, 2012: 24) while at the same time recognizing that such ordered patterns and the affective meaning-making involved in them are contingent (or ‘could be otherwise’, p. 4). Thus, in this article, articulations of emotions in online racist discourse are studied as part of interactional processes of accomplishing affective–discursive order, rather than measured against a taken-for-granted order of emotional restraint. In particular, it focuses on the use of the subtle humorous practice of satire to articulate emotions in online racist discussions under scrutiny and on the order of racist humour emerging in responses to satire.

This brings me to the affective–discursive practice of online racist humour. Billig (2001) argues that the meta-discourse of online racist joke sites disrupts mainstream boundaries of reason, allowing the expression of violent racist fantasies otherwise discursively repressed. In a different way, Weaver (2011) analyses how the rhetorical structure of online racist jokes strengthens racist claims to ‘truth’, thus reducing modern ambivalences around the Other and contributing to racist order-building. Unlike Weaver, and following the affective–discursive practice perspective just outlined, I focus on the interactional practice of racist humorous order-building as well as its rhetorical structures. Unlike Billig, I focus on the boundaries accomplished, and not only those disrupted, in online racist affective–discursive interactions around satire and other humour forms. Finally, neither Billig nor Weaver specifically addresses the use of satire in online racist discourse (although Weaver discusses it in relation to the Danish Muhammad Cartoons). The next section outlines the components of satirical humour relevant for the analysis of online racist discourse about EU-migrants begging for money in Sweden.

Racist satirical discourse

Prime and dialectic in Flashback satire

The first part of the analysis of racist satire on Flashback seeks to answer four questions: What is satirical about the opening post of the discussion thread? ‘Should begging be seen as a job and therefore the EU-migrants as labour migrants?’, quoted below (1)? What is intended to be humorous about it? Who/what is the target of satirical humour? In what sense does it involve racist affective–discursive articulations? This post is unusually subtly formulated compared to other posts on Flashback:

(1) Lately, many have migrated from the newer EU-countries to Sweden. These EU-migrants mostly seem to support themselves through begging in streets and squares. This has led many here in Sweden to express concern. Some complain that it is disturbing with beggars in the streets. Others are really upset because of the beggars’ poor housing. Some utter accusations towards the EU-migrants’ home countries. All in all […] the situation is not satisfactory. Something simply has to be done. My proposal is that begging should be seen as just like any other job. If we decide on that, […] the EU-migrants will be seen as labour. This is because begging is now seen as an occupation. And begging in Sweden has for a long time been poorly developed. There is simply a great shortage of labour power in begging. The need for a well-developed begging industry, is thus satisfied by the EU-migrants. […] (Flashback, 2014, 2 April, post #1)

While most readers will probably notice that there is something odd about (1) – for one thing, the proposal itself seems incongruous, which I will return to later – its satirical elements may be located following Simpson’s (2003) account of the two ironic modes in satire. Starting with the prime, what sort of discourse is echoed, and how is it echoed?

To begin with, the post’s form resembles a ‘serious’ mainstream opinion article in a newspaper. There is a seemingly balanced presentation of divergent opinions about a problem, then a solution is proposed (‘begging should be seen as just like any other job’) and finally, an argument is presented for this solution. This suggests that mainstream media discourse on the topic of EU-migrants is echoed. However, there are markers of ironic distance indicating that the post is a ‘spoof’ (Simpson, 2003: 93); for example, the divergent opinions are listed in a trivializing way, suggesting that disagreements only concern whether street begging is ‘disturbing’ or whether the EU-migrants’ ‘poor housing’ is found ‘upsetting’, which is hardly an exhausting description of mainstream media debate about the issue.

The spoof quality is strengthened in the satirist’s subsequent posts in the thread. In one, the satirist writes that his or her proposal might seem like a ‘joke […] but in Sweden it is not at all a joke’, adding that he or she is ‘greatly surprised that the Green- and Left party [politicians] have not already suggested what I am suggesting here’ (Flashback, 2014, 2 April, post #7). In another, the satirist writes that his or her proposal would contribute to Sweden’s status as a ‘humanitarian superpower’, a word the Swedish centre/right-wing Moderate party uses to describe its asylum policy ambitions (Moderaterna, 2014), and adds that this is something that ‘Sweden’, not the satirist himself or herself, ‘claims to be aspiring to’ (Flashback, 2014, 2 April, post #5). Finally, in a post where arguments for the proposal are presented, the satirist writes, (2) ‘Immigration […] is what pushes Sweden as a country forward. At least I have read in the newspapers, heard on the radio, and seen on tv, that it is what makes Sweden continue to exist’ (Flashback, 2014, 3 April, post # 23).

In sum, the satirist’s proposal and his or her subsequent statements are presented as not really the satirist’s own opinions, but ascribed to a range of different actors, including political parties along the entire spectrum of established politics as well as mainstream media. Thus, a vague and generalized establishment of mainstream political and media actors is constructed at the same time as the satirist marks distance towards this establishment’s putative statements. This sort of distancing and generalizing echoing is typical of satire (Simpson, 2003: 95–96), and a distancing from the ‘politically correct’ establishment is to be expected in racist discourse (e.g. Hughey and Daniels, 2013).

But not just any type of establishment discourse is echoed in (1). In particular, the proposal to define street begging as a regular job echoes a stance taken by the centre/right-wing block in Swedish politics in mainstream discourse on the issue of labour migration, although, as seen above, it is attributed to a more general mainstream establishment. This discursive stance claims that immigration is positive insofar as it contributes to economic growth by strengthening the country in the face of international competition and by supplying it with needed professional skills (e.g. Moderaterna, 2014). That this view of labour migration is targeted in the satire is clear in a later post, where the satirist writes, (3) ‘if we recognize […] begging as an occupation, it can constitute a desirable temptation, for a lot more people […] to come to Sweden, and with their professional knowledge contribute to the continued desirable development of Sweden’ (Flashback, 2014, 3 April, post #23). This brings me to the second element of satire, the dialectic incongruity, which introduces an opposition running counter to the expectations implied in the echoed discourse, whereby a comic effect is created (Simpson, 2003: 96).

Specifically, the centre/right-wing discourse on labour migration is echoed in the argument that street begging should be seen as ‘just like any other job’ because this would satisfy the ‘need’ for a ‘well-developed begging industry’ supposedly suffering from a ‘great shortage in labour power’ (see (1)). In the context of Swedish labour migration discourse, this would be incongruous with expectations: While this discourse defines immigration as positive to the extent that it provides Swedish industries with competitive advantages and professional skills, it would not define street begging as an ‘industry’ experiencing a ‘shortage of labour power’ with the necessary ‘professional skills’ in this sense. But in presenting street begging in this way, the satire juxtaposes the categories of begging and jobs in a way running counter to the expectations implied in the position taken by the centre/right-wing camp in mainstream discourse on labour migration. Thus, the more general establishment discourse echoed throughout the satirist’s posts is mocked as leading to the supposedly absurd, and therefore comic, conclusion that street begging has to be defined as ‘just like any other job’. This ascription of a putatively humorous incongruity to establishment discourse, constructed as positive towards migration, is a subtle attempt at communicating a racist position, dismissing all established views that see anything positive in migration.

Racist satire in the context of the Flashback humour community

However, this piece of satire is not presented to a mainstream audience, but to Flashback participants. Thus, it is not participants in mainstream discourse that are assumed to find the satire humorous; rather, a Flashback humour community is presupposed. This raises the question, What is really meant to be comic about the juxtaposition of the supposedly incongruous categories of begging and jobs?

To answer this question, it is necessary to contextualize the piece of satire by looking at other Flashback discussions about EU-migrants. In the thread ‘Immigrants who beg’ (Flashback, 2011–2012), a frequently occurring feature is narratives presenting EU-migrants as dishonest and as criminals, narratives that often also involve stereotyping and dehumanization of Roma. (4) is a typical example of the dishonesty narrative, drawing on recurrent stereotypes about Roma, here referred to as ‘Gypsies’, being immoral (e.g. Goodman and Rowe, 2014: 34) and dehumanizing the EU-migrants by calling them ‘pigs’:

(4) Really conscience-lacking pigs some of them are. (Gypsies I assume) [sic.], enter trains and buses and walk around there begging while at the same time showing pictures of deformed children […] that they have stolen from the internet but pretend are their own. (Flashback, 2012, 20 February, post #240) ⁶

The narrative presenting EU-migrants as criminals is exemplified in (5), which clearly draws on recurrent stereotypes about Roma (once again referred to as ‘Gypsies’) as thieves (e.g. Goodman and Rowe, 2014: 33):

(5) One must ask the question whether the begging and the street music making is the only thing they do. ‘Romanians’ have been linked to both skimming and other credit card frauds, copper thefts, robbery of old people and burglary. These Romanian gypsies are probably active within several different criminal niches during their stays in the country. (Flashback, 2012, 11 May, post #295)

Street begging, particularly done by Roma EU-migrants, defined as a dishonest and criminal activity in this way on Flashback, suggests that it is assumed to be the opposite of a regular job, which is presumably an honest, law-abiding activity. This is also indicated in one of the (bemused) responses to the satire analysed here: ‘Why not recognize what other one-percenters ⁷ do for a living as an honest job too? If one recognizes begging as an honest job, then burglary, robbery, fraud should be as well?’ (Flashback, 2014, 3 April, post #43)

I will return to the responses evoked by the satire below. Here, the point is that what makes defining begging ‘as just like any other job’ an incongruous proposal, and therefore presumably humorous, in the Flashback humour community is that street begging is already constructed as the opposite of an honest job, especially when Roma are suspected to be involved. This rests on a shared assumption of a sharp status difference between Roma EU-migrants begging for money and honest (presumably Swedish) workers, where the former are assumed to be inferior to the latter. What the mock proposal suggests by combining these supposedly incongruous elements, implying that begging and having a regular job are equally acceptable and legitimate means of support, is a levelling of this status difference. Such a levelling would be unacceptable and unexpected in the Flashback community, whose members obviously identify with the category of Swedish workers. Therefore, the proposal is expected to be humorous to this particular audience. So, when establishment discourse on labour migration is mocked here, this is done by presenting it as really implying such a levelling of status differences between Roma EU-migrants and Swedish workers. Thus, following Billig (2005: 72–73), incongruity is only held to be humorous when perceived to go against an assumed order of hierarchical social relationships, itself assumed not to be funny at all.

Furthermore, presenting a levelling of the assumed status difference between Roma EU-migrants and Swedish workers as a humorous incongruity to an audience identifying with the latter is a celebration of this status difference, articulating the triumphant joy in superiority described by Kemper (2011: 61) as the source of laughter. At the same time, this is contemptuous joy since it ridicules a status ascription to Roma EU-migrants assumed to be undeserved – undeserved status being the source of contempt (Kemper, 2011: 33). Thus, racist contempt and joy in superiority are affective–discursively accomplished in this satire, which, thus, targets Roma EU-migrants as much as establishment discourse on migration.

Bemused responses, unlaughter and the making of a racist affective–discursive order

It may be recalled that to be ‘successful’, satire requires that the satirees, that is, the audience, both recognize the satirist’s insincere or ironic intent and judge the satirical act to be appropriate (Simpson, 2003: 165–166). In the interactions taking place around the satire under scrutiny here, these requirements seem to shape the responses of the other participants. Indeed, as the following will show, the satirical proposal analysed above does not receive many responses from the satirees that indicate amusement. This lack of amusement, however, is not due to a disagreement with the racist premises that the satire has to presuppose in order to have a humorous effect. Rather, as I will try to show, it is due to the ‘inappropriateness’ of the satirical proposal in the context of Flashback racist discourse.

There are some exceptions that do display humorous amusement in response to the satire. In (6), this is seen in the attempt to adopt the satirical mode, indicating conferral of insincerity to a piece of satire (Simpson, 2003: 182), which is nevertheless done in a much more direct and outspokenly anti-Roma racist manner in line with the stereotypical narratives presenting EU-migrants as dishonest (see (4–5); Goodman and Rowe, 2014; Rowe and Goodman, 2014):

(6) But that’s an excellent proposal, in line with today’s development. Another good thing is that the Roma finally can start to pay taxes. Everybody knows that all the Roma want is to contribute to Swedish welfare, just like all other immigrants, but as non-registered beggars it has been really hard. As a taxable labour migrant this dream can now finally come true for many Roma. (Flashback, 2014, 2 May, post #57, bold in original)

However, a more typical response is to display disapproval of the mock proposal without any signs of amusement. Several of these responses purport to refute the proposal as if it was serious, as seen in quotes (7–9), denying that begging might be defined as a regular job or that it might contribute to the growth and development of the economy, which the satirist’s ironic appropriation of centre/right-wing discourse on labour migration had suggested in (1):

(7) No. Begging contributes nothing productively to society, neither principally nor factually, abstractly or concretely. Thus it is not a job. (Flashback, 2014, 2 April, post #9)

(8) Begging should not be seen as a job because it doesn’t create any value or goods; socioeconomically it is purely negative keeping in mind all social misery, extra costs and added work for authorities and the social sector that it brings. (Flashback, 2014, 8 April, post #54)

(9) It is NOT a way out to make begging into a legitimate occupation, then we are just solidifying a society where the streets crawl with beggars (Flashback, 2014, 3 April, post #22)

While posts (7–9) emphasize the assumption about the categories begging and jobs as incongruous, they do not present this incongruity as humorous, as the satirist did, but rather as a serious proposal to be rejected, or even, as suggested by the expansive language (Retzinger, 1995) in (9), as a provocation. Two responses to the satirist’s claim in quote (2) above capture this sense of provocation: (10) ‘No one with a minimum of critical thinking would claim that the immigrants have built the country’ (Flashback, 2014, 3 April, post #24) and (11) ‘Hell, you must be a rocket scientist. Wake up damn it’ (Flashback, 2014, 3 April, post #25).

The bemused responses (7–11) might suggest that the satirist’s mock proposal simply has not been understood as insincere, which would explain the lack of signs of amusement in the satirees’ responses. It should be noted, however, that the satirist ends all of his or her posts with the signature ‘Karl Kapplin, authorized buffoon and clown’ (‘Karl Kapplin’ being a ‘swedification’ of Charlie Chaplin), and his or her avatar is an image of Charlie Chaplin posing as the Dictator Adenoid Hynkel (although the blue and yellow colours of the Swedish flag have been added to the Hynkel’s party emblem). This communicates insincerity and signals that amusement is expected. Thus, although the bemused responses quoted above may not be instances of unlaughter in the strict sense (see section ‘Data and method’), they may constitute a significant absence of amusement where it is otherwise expected. Possibly, they are instances of enacting ‘seriousness’ to communicate disapproval, that is, mode rejection (Simpson, 2003: 182), rather than of a failure to ‘get’ the point, although ‘getting’ the point is not signalled by explicit reference to the satire’s non-serious intent.

However, several responses clearly indicate disapproval while at the same time explicitly signalling that the ironic position of the satirist has been recognized, thus arguably articulating unlaughter in the strict sense (non-amusement plus explicit reference to non-serious intent; see section ‘Data and method’). In an earlier post, the satirist had claimed to be ‘serious’; however, distancing himself or herself from this position, he or she also wrote that the proposal would be ‘dismissed as purely ridiculous’ in a ‘normal country’ and claimed to be ‘adaptable’ to Sweden’s ‘multicultural agenda’ (Flashback, 2014, 2 April, post #6). Quote (12) is a response to that post:

(12) Hard to determine which ones are troll-threads … You wrote something about Sweden not being normal and that is worth commenting, because the goal ought not to be to throw in the towel and adapt oneself to a weird situation like you’re suggesting but the opposite: to aim at changing it for the better again. Or what? (Flashback, 2014, 5 April, post #32)

The reference to ‘troll-threads’ suggests that the proposal has not been taken seriously; it refers to posts that disturb the discussion through posting unserious comments. In fact, the word ‘troll-thread’, the lack of signs of amusement and the uncertainty about the satirist’s position articulated in the post (‘Or what?’) together present the satirist’s use of indirect means to communicate his or her message as disturbingly inappropriate in its lack of clarity. This is also suggested when the same participant, in a later post, urges the satirist to get serious: (13) ‘Get into the game now ’ (Flashback, 2014, 5 April, post #39).

An even clearer articulation of unlaughter, presenting the satire as ‘nonsense’, is the following, written by a participant nicknamed Meiji: (14) ‘You have written several posts (in other threads), which are worth considering … but this is pure nonsense … and you probably know that’ (Flashback, 2014, 6 May, post #60). Responding to this, the satirist again takes an ironic stance, both dismissing that his or her proposal is nonsense (Flashback, 2014, 6 May, post #61) and at the same time marking distance by claiming that ‘[i]n a country run by buffoons […] one has to act as a buffoon’ (Flashback, 2014, 6 May, post #63). Finally, Meiji posts a response clearly indicating both disapproval and understanding of the satirical intent, that is, unlaughter:

(15) It is very hard to write satire in Sweden, since Sweden is surrealistic. Swift’s ⁸ audience generally believed, that it was out of the question to eat children. Your proposal – that begging is classified as work in Sweden – will not be generally dismissed. (Flashback, 2014, 7 May, post #66)

Post (15) presents the use of satire – and the satirist’s positioning as both serious and unserious – when discussing EU-migrants begging for money on Flashback as risky in its ambiguous indirectness. Meiji does not disagree with the underlying racist assumption of the satire, that is, that equalizing begging with work is a ridiculous and ultimately contemptible levelling of status differences between EU-migrants and Swedish workers. Rather, he or she articulates fear that readers might be lured into taking the satirical proposal seriously. Again, a demand for clarity of position is articulated: in racist Flashback discourse, humour is off limits if it is not clear about its racist message.

Thus, while racist humour may have the serious effect of contributing to racist order-building by reducing ambivalences surrounding the construction of the Other (Weaver, 2011), these final posts suggest that constructing a racist order also places constraints on ‘appropriate’ racist humour, which must unambiguously confirm the racist assumptions of the humour community. Perhaps, this explains the bemused responses to the satire (7–11) as well as the more immediate instances of unlaughter (12–15). To elaborate on this, I now turn to examples of more typical racist humour and responses to it in the material.

Superiority humour and laughter within the bounds of a racist order

As Billig (2001) argues, bigots do not lack a sense of humour, although racist humour is not innocent or inconsequential. My point in the previous section was to demonstrate that, at least in Flashback discourse, this racist humour is nevertheless constrained by certain boundaries of ‘appropriateness’, which demand that the communication of racist messages through humour is unambiguous. This is further suggested by typical examples of racist humour on Flashback, which might seem unrestrained but in fact might be said to conform to these boundaries. Examples of this sort of humour, and of the responses evoked by it, will be analysed below.

Sometimes, begging EU-migrants carry notes with them, accounting for their need for money. Several posts in the Flashback thread ‘Immigrants who beg’ include more or less elaborate ridiculing stories about these notes, which are typically presented as examples confirming the stereotypical narratives presenting EU-migrants as dishonest, discussed above. Quote (17) exemplifies such stories:

(16) Yeah, I’ve encountered those notes many times. Lately I have begun to snitch the note they lay beside me. The last time was yesterday (note no 3). I also take the note and put it in the inside pocket so that the beggar sees me do it.

When he was on his way back he looked at me ‘i saw you take the note, can i have it back?’, he said in shaky English. The guy was like 25–28 and a short buster.

‘Nah, I’ll keep it for now, hurry up so you dont miss your next train’, I answered.

‘What do you need the note for? Give it back!’

‘I want it for my collection, deal with it’.

After that he backed off a few steps, started to punch the seats and swore wildly in gypsian ⁹ (romanian?), pointed his finger at me and banged on the window when walked by on the outside. When he did so I pointed my finger back at him at the same time as I opened my jacket to show the note sticking up (Flashback, 2012, 10 May, post #279)

Quote (16) follows the structure of comic narratives of triumph (Kleres, 2011: 192). The narrator presents an episode in which he or she steals a note from an EU-migrant begging for money, who attempts to reclaim it. This is the obstruction in the narrative. Then, the narrator presents himself or herself as resisting this attempt and as unaffected by concern for the EU-migrant, as seen in the utterances he or she attributes to himself or herself. After another attempt at getting the note back, the EU-migrant is presented as giving up, displaying his frustration by hitting train seats, swearing and pointing his finger. Then, the narrator presents himself or herself as triumphantly pointing his or her finger back and showing off the note he or she has stolen. The post ends with a so-called evil grin smiley. Thus, the narrator presents himself or herself as successfully overpowering and humiliating an EU-migrant, signalling that this is a pleasurable event. This is an unambiguous example of the joy in superiority described by Kemper (2011: 61).

This story evokes immediate responses such as the following: (17) ‘Ha ha. Dead on target. As for myself I am too yellow to snitch notes but damn it’s time to try’ (Flashback, 2012, 10 May, post #280). Or: (18) ‘Haha, I have done similar things. Have a pretty good collection of beggar notes at home now’ (Flashback, 2012, 17 May, post #313). After a while, in response to the story, another participant presents the following supposedly ‘funny’ idea about how to humiliate EU-migrants begging for money, once again presented as ‘organized criminals’:

(19) Is there anyone who has snitched a note who can scan the picture of it? I came up with a funny joke one can do with the beggars. You make a note that looks the same as theirs with the same picture and the same format, but you replace the text. So when a beggar gets the note back, he receives a ‘flashback’ produced note instead of the one with the sob story that these organized criminals try to circulate (Flashback, 2012, 18 May, post #317)

Immediate responses follow: (20) ‘That would be damn fun to do. I can volunteer some weekend’ (Flashback, 2012, 20 May, post #318). And: (21) ‘HAHAHA that’s super smart!!!! And with a MEAN picture too!!!!’ (Flashback, 2012, 22 May, post #321).

Quotes (17–21) are unmistakable displays of amusement at the story presenting humiliation of EU-migrants as pleasurable (16). The quotes may seem to confirm the unrestrained nature of racism in anonymous online settings. Indeed, admitting to, and displaying amusement at, illegal and racist acts would seem to be a clear instance of ‘disinhibition’ from the point of view of mainstream discourse since neither admitting to such acts nor displaying amusement at them would be acceptable in a mainstream context.

However, by assuming that there is only one order of appropriate and inappropriate emotional expression, this would be to ignore the contingency and variability of orders of emotional restraint (see sub-section on p.4). Furthermore, it would ignore the rhetorical nature of humour and its capacity to communicate and maintain order (Billig, 2005). In the preceding section, I suggested that the disapproving and unlaughing responses to racist satire indicated an affective–discursive order in the racist Flashback humour community, prescribing that racist messages should be communicated unambiguously. Unambiguous superiority humour (16) and its responses (17–21) simply show the other side of this humour order. For the many responses indicating that humiliating EU-migrants is indeed found to be humorous, communicate approval of, and even celebrate, stories of such humiliation. Thus, in this case, the humour community’s expectations of clarity are met, but in the case of satire, they are not. Laughter and unlaughter, then, are two sides of the same coin in the practice of constructing an online racist affective–discursive order around humour.