“ZERO TOLERANCE TO ABUSERS”: PERFORMANCE RUPTURE AND CREATION OF AN ONLINE AMBIENT AFFILIATION FROM THE PWR BTTM BAND CASE

Abstract

Intimate narratives of women who suffered sexual abuse has grown on the internet. This paper presents the denounced case of rape committed by one of the PWR BTTM band members, a band from the New York queer-punk music scene, which happened more than a year ago. With the use of Systemic Functional Linguistic, we analyze posts on Twitter from people that considered themselves fans of the band before the event. We argue that there was a break of “expressive coherence” by the band that performed, symbolic and materially, in ways of questioning heteronormative patterns of behavior. As a result from such rupture in their performance, a handful of fans no longer identify themselves with PWR BTTM, and created an online ambient affiliation based in the exchange of experiences from disappointed ex-fans.