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In reply to the discussion: It is really thrilling that John Fetterman won so decisively. [View all]AZProgressive
(29,934 posts)Bernie Bros are a myth.
There is hard data that shows "Bernie Bros" are a myth
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A few weeks ago I penned a story for Salon attempting to qualitatively disprove the Bernie Bro myth by pulling from psychological theory and the nature of online behavior. To summarize my conclusions: First, there is a general tendency for online behavior to be negative, known as the online disinhibition effect but it affects all people equally, not merely Sanders' supporters. Second, pundits systematically ignore when other candidates' supporters are mean online, perhaps because of the aforementioned established stereotype; in this sense, the Bernie Bro is not dissimilar from other political canards like the "welfare queen." Third, Twitter is not a representative sample size of the population, and is so prone to harboring propaganda outfits and bots such that it is not a reliable way of gauging public opinion.
Now, to add to this qualitative assessment, there is quantitative evidence, too reaped from studying hundreds of thousands of interactions online that reveals the Bernie Bro myth as, well, a myth. Jeff Winchell, a computational social scientist and graduate student at Harvard University, crunched the numbers on tweet data and found that Sanders' supporters online behave the same as everyone else. Winchell used what is called a sentiment analysis, a technique used both in the digital humanities and in e-commerce, to gauge emotional intent from social media data.
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"Bernie followers act pretty much the same on Twitter as any other follower," Winchell says of his results. "There is one key difference that Twitter users and media don't seem to be aware of.... Bernie has a lot more Twitter followers than Twitter followers of other Democrat's campaigns," he added, noting that this may be partly what helps perpetuate the myth.
https://www.salon.com/2020/03/09/there-is-hard-data-that-shows-bernie-bros-are-a-myth/
There are pro Russia leftists on Twitter but they use Bernie and his movement for their own selfish purposes but Bernie Bro was a campaign smear.