Baywatchnormativism: The Case of Quora

Karl Muth exlores the demographics of question and answer website Quora.

I make no secret of how I spend my spare time. Much of it is spent reading. Much of the rest is spent on Wikipedia and Quora, where I make edits (on Wikipedia) and answer questions (on Quora). I have tried to turn fellow non-Indian (mostly white) academics into members of the Quora community and the question I most often get in response, after they explore the website, is: “Is this a website for Indian people?” (this sentiment is captured in a question asked on Quora).

Implicit in this question is a deeper question: “Are websites frequented by many Indian people places where white British people are unwelcome?" Or perhaps most interestingly: Is the "default user expectation” of the Internet "I'm interacting with white people"? If so, why? Would people doubt the accuracy of Wikipedia if it were known that 25%, 50%, or 75% of the people editing Wikipedia were non-white?

There has been an enormous influx of Indian people on the Quora website. In fact, it’s gotten to the point that my answer to “What are some smart moves a 22-year-old can make as soon as he/she starts earning?” looks almost out-of-place next to all the answers clearly steeped in Indian context.

But this reveals another piece of our society, which I like to call Baywatchnormativism (compare to heteronormative). This is my term for the hilarious concept (misconception) is that the Internet, despite being accessible to billions of people from all cultures and geographies, should conform to American precepts of culture, linguistic convention, social norms, and so forth. In essence, this is a normative determination that the Internet should be like network television: mostly white, mostly upper-middle-class, disproportionately blonde, Western-standards-of-beauty-only, mostly Californian with a splash of New York or Chicago.

I find the unorchestrated, haphazard “takeover” of Quora to be a refreshing experiment. Here is a website aimed at well-educated, upper-middle-class people willing to answer questions from strangers free of charge. It has no explicit regional or cultural affiliation and was not designed as an “Indian website” (or an American website or a British website, for that matter). Yet when Americans and British people first use the site, they almost universally have this reaction that they are not the majority – instead, Indians are the majority, and a visible majority.

This contrasts with “real life.” In the “IRL” world, Indians are also more common than Americans or British people, but are less visible (on Quora, they are both more prevalent and more visible). I like to think that, by using sites like Quora, dominant minority groups (like whites and Americans, for instance) can appreciate their status as minorities. I further like to imagine that this gives the white American or British user a glimpse into what life is like for members of minority groups using the Internet or watching television, where the content tends to be skewed toward showcasing people with very unusual characteristics (what percentage of the world’s population is blonde?).

From a policy standpoint, I do not think media in general, or Internet content in particular, needs to be representative of demographics. I do think it would be unreasonable to expect one fifth of characters in Hollywood films to be Chinese and another fifth to be Indian, for instance (though this would more accurately reflect population statistics). However, I do think it is good to have scenarios where financially or politically empowered minorities are able to appreciate their minority status, something they are shielded from in much of their day-to-day life. The only way to ensure that we do not live in a world of new, cloaked apartheids is to understand the various spheres in which tiny minorities wield enormous power (white New Yorkers in banking or Mecanese Chinese in gaming, for instance) and to remember that dominance is temporary, fragile, and local.

On Quora, I continue to answer questions and to read answers written by others. Sometimes, the answers I read are written by people who are Indian – I am thankful for the diversity of opinion and feel no less welcome in its presence. And if Quora did conform to the prevailing Baywatchnormativism that much of the media I consume conforms to, I don’t know that I would feel more welcome – but I suspect that Baywatchnormative community might lose the expertise of many in China, India, South Africa, and elsewhere. And that would be a shame.