Award Date

May 2025

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies

First Committee Member

Arthur Soto-Vasquez

Second Committee Member

Benjamin Burroughs

Third Committee Member

Kevin Stoker

Fourth Committee Member

Jeffrey Child

Number of Pages

82

Abstract

This thesis examines social media marketing materials for Workaholics, a sitcom aired on Comedy Central from 2011 to 2017, to study paratextual temporality/ephemerality, the “brand as friend” social media strategy, and how masculinity is articulated through paratexts. The project incorporates theories from the fields of social media and internet marketing studies, television content and industry studies, and promotional paratext studies. Research centered on 100 Workaholics X (formerly Twitter) posts, published from January 2012 to March 2017. Posts were collected using Google Chrome extension TwExportly. Qualitative textual and content analysis of these paratexts results in three categories of findings. First, I discuss the brand’s relationship with the audience developed through social media paratexts, observing the evolving writing style of the profile - from informal with errors in 2012, to polished and professional through 2014. Second, I examine the show’s prominent theme of masculinity: how its satire of toxic masculinity manifests as misogyny in paratexts, how these paratexts reinforced the Comedy Central brand of immature heteronormativity, and how the 2010s masculinity crisis was articulated through similar discourse in various online subcultures. Lastly, by exploring the temporality of ephemeral paratext meaning, I introduce the term “online paratextual decay,” the process of paratexts actively losing meaning primarily due to external technical factors and corporate participatory space oversight. I conclude with a discussion solidifying the concept of paratextual meaning decay: situating it in paratextual literature, identifying the corrosive relationship between toxic masculinity and paratexts, and the potential national implications of this decay effect.

Keywords

Comedy Central; masculinity; meaning decay; paratexts; social media; Workaholics

Disciplines

Communication | Communication Technology and New Media | Marketing | Mass Communication | Other Communication

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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