r/humansbeingbros: Sanctification and Ethical Reflection on Reddit

The subreddit r/humansbeingbros, home to 5.6 million members, provides a fascinating medium for analyzing a dynamic virtual community in which the language and aesthetics of sanctity is routinely employed for the purpose of ethical reflection, veneration, humor, and entertainment. Declarations of sanctity (and an implied ethical “bro code”) abound in the subreddit, and saintly actors include children, women, men, and communities. All have the capacity to be “bros.” Through an examination of the language used by commenters and moderators, analytics on upvotes, and recurring saintly signifiers, this paper seeks to understand the yield and limitations of including a simultaneously sincere and tongue-in-cheek social media community in studies of the ethical self and sacred texts. Moreover, the presence of video shorts, diegetic sound, and non-diegetic music, as well as text, invites scholars to think more expansively about sacred texts and ethics both in and outside of their own research.