Alt-resilience: a semantic network analysis of identity (re)construction in an online men's rights community

Online communities can provide social support that plays a critical role in identity reconstruction. Given a changing gendered landscape in which men's identity constructions and configurations of masculinity are disrupted and challenged, some men have begun organizing online using platforms like Reddit to support and provide strategies for reasserting and reconstructing traditional forms of masculinity. Although these spaces are becoming increasingly popular, scholarship is nascent in deeply understanding how these spaces influence identity reconstruction. This paper argues that resilience processes may be a key logic in explaining how men's identity constructions occur and why men's rights communities are flourishing online. Through text mining and semantic network analysis of 35,643 comments, identity constructions vis-a-vis resilience processes were found to be fostered through contradictory logics surrounding sexual activity. These findings contribute to an alternative form of communicative resilience and provide a possible explanation and understanding of how men's rights communities persist online.