From the Streets to the Screen to Nowhere: Las Morras and the Fragility of Networked Digital Activism

Abstract

Drawing on a case study of Mexico City-based feminist media producers Las Morras, this article addresses both the potentialities of digital media activism for raising awareness about gender-based harassment and its limits for facilitating social/political transformations. Las Morras drew international attention in 2016 when they released a series of YouTube videos of group members with hidden GoPro cameras repeatedly confronting male cat-callers and casual harassers. Incorporating a qualitative content analysis of the responses to YouTube videos and comments taken from Las Morras’ Twitter and Facebook accounts (before deletion) with in-depth interviews with founding members, we argue that Las Morras offers a powerful illustration of the paradoxical role of networked digital media as activist tool. On the one hand, it rapidly circulated a powerful critique of misogyny. On the other hand, the negative attention it received (including doxing, trolling of the site, and personal threats directed at members) led to the eventual demise of the group.