What Bridgerton Can Teach Us About The Value In Lurking
The fantastical world of the Netflix series Bridgerton, set in Britain’s Regency era, a time before the typewriter, let alone a computer, is definitely not the scene most people would associate with internet insights.
Lurkers, the silent readers of social media who don’t make their presence known through likes, comments, or shares, are the humorous subject of many popcorn inspired memes. Often lurkers are viewed as predatory or greedy and their contributions, if any, are considered irrelevant. Lady Whistledown readers know the power that lurkers can wield.
As someone who has spent the last five years studying the phenomenon, lurking is a digital literacy that can be a valuable part of the way we lead our lives online. Lady Whistledown, the eponymous author of Mayfair’s most titillating newsletter, is the ultimate lurker and Bridgerton offers a frame that can be applied to our social media societies for better understanding how lurkers create value in online communities.
Lurkers Don't Lurk Everywhere
Penelope Featherington (a pun on her quilled writings about the ton, Britain’s aristocracy) is invited to all of the best events of the social season, but she is most comfortable along the wall watching the interactions and listening to the conversations of others. Initially, it is her amusement in the bits of gossip she overhears that inspires her to invent the pseudonym Lady Whistledown and to author a newsletter pamphlet, of the same name, sharing the insights she would never dare speak aloud. Penelope, aptly nicknamed Pen, might be a lurker in the ballroom, but she’s also a content producer for Fleet Street.
Internet lurking works in a similar way. Enticing gossip or drama might initially draw us in to read and spectate on commenting threads, but this state of silent reading is not our only means of participation. Gossip can only sustain our interests for so long. Lurking is a literacy, one of the many sophisticated ways we process information in online spaces. Multiple studies have shown that 90% of participation in an online community is lurking. It is a choice we make as we toggle among platforms. And just because you lurk in one space, doesn’t mean you’re a lurker everywhere. Lurking depends on context and everyone is a lurker once in a while.
Lurking is Lucrative
Lurking can be a means of identifying new markets and researching trends. Through lurking, Pen has built the Lady Whistledown brand and her entrepreneurial venture relies on the support of a dedicated community of eager readers. Similarly, you might lurk on discord servers to learn more about NFTs and then produce content about crypto on Instagram. The majority of your followers on Instagram might not ever like or comment on your posts, but as lurkers their presence still provides value in terms of page views and hover metrics that feed the algorithm. These metrics could lead to financial gain, but direct compensation is not the only way to generate value.
Lurking can lead to increased networking opportunities. Female entrepreneurs rely on lurking as a way to identify points of contact for collaboration, which then leads to offline networks of support. This is especially true for Black entrepreneurs who experience additional hurdles to accessing traditional networking opportunities. Pen’s relationship with Madame Delacroix, a favored dressmaker of the ton, emerges from a similar pattern. While shopping for a typeset letter in a commoner’s marketplace, Pen is observed by Madame Delacroix. Although Madame Delacroix has deduced that Pen is the author of Lady Whistledown, she promises not to share the secret. In the next edition of Lady Whistledown, Pen strategically promotes Modiste, the dress shop owned by Madame Delacroix. This gesture increases foot traffic to the Modiste and is the beginning of a collaboration between the two women. Madame Delacroix assists Pen by using the Modiste as a front for smuggling the handwritten Lady Whistledown newsletters into silk and having them delivered to the typesetter for publication. Pen continues to promote Modiste in Lady Whistledown and diverts the ton’s attention from a rival dress shop ultimately putting it out of business.
Lurking Can Lead To Revolution
It is through lurking that we encounter diverse viewpoints that challenge us to think in new ways. Receptive reading, a lurker literacy practice where a person reads to better understand divergent thought, can be the first step toward taking social action. As a lurker, Pen listens to the conversations of servants and tradespeople whose voices are not centered in Georgian society and to whom she would not otherwise be permitted to candidly converse. As a receptive reader, she becomes aware of the inequities in the publishing industry. This leads her to take an activist stance on behalf of the paperboys who deliver her newsletters. Notably, she does not take up the issue within the pages of Lady Whistledown. Instead, when bargaining with the typesetter, she demands and succeeds in acquiring wage increases for the paperboys. Receptive reading on social media can lead to grassroots actions that occur offline.
Lurkers also engage in participatory restraint as a conscious means of resisting the spread of malicious content or misinformation. As someone who oscillates between lurker and content producer, Pen thinks carefully about which stories to promote and which ones to resist. Lady Whistledown shares gossip about the influencers of the ton, but does not poke fun at those who are on the periphery, the other wallflowers who season after season find themselves without a match. Nor does she write about the servants who could lose their livelihood if their secrets were shared. Her (former?) BFF Eloise, on the other hand, does not benefit from the same restraint.
At the conclusion of Season 2’s Bridgerton, Pen narrates, “it has been said that silence can wield more power than words. No one knows that better than me.”
Lurkers can be powerful members of online communities and they demand our closer attention.
Gina Sipley, Ph.D. is the author of the book, Just Here For the Comments: Lurking as Digital Literacy Practice (Bristol University Press, UK, 2024). Visit her newsletter, Words.