Laughing the Politically Incorrect Way: Humor Usage on the 4chan /pol/ Forum

Journalistic evidence suggests an increasing link between right-wing extremist groups and humor usage. I investigate archives from the “politically incorrect” /pol/ forum on 4chan, an anonymous imageboard website. While not every individual on the /pol/ forum is a right-wing extremist, many have views consistent with right-wing extremist ideology. I am interested in how humor is used on the /pol/ forum. I use three main methods. 1) Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling is being used for 4chan comments from years 2014-2018 to identify common topics and trends. 2) Qualitative text analysis is used to analyze 1,000 comments obtained from 4chan archives for years 2014 and 2018 for humor usage and prevalence of politically incorrect rhetoric (possibly indicating extremist views). 3) Image analysis is used to analyze 650 images from 2014-2018. Analysis of LDA topic modeling shows that most topics center around race, sex, and religion. Racial slurs and expletives are commonly used to discuss these topics. While there are slight differences in what topics are grouped together year by year, overarching themes remain consistent. Qualitative text analysis and image analysis show that ridicule is the most used humor type, and racial minorities - specifically African-Americans - are the most common targets. I explore rhetoric and humor nuances, and conclude that humor is a powerful online tool, used by those on the /pol/ forum to take over symbols in mainstream media and create in-group solidarity.Bachelor of Art