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Cancel culture, a phenomenon that has become one of the buzzwords over the last decade in our digital era. This thesis discusses the concept of cancel culture, how it works, and its mechanisms. First, we start with the basics of cancel culture and explain what cancel culture is, who the target is, and the consequences. Then we move on to the origins and the history of cancel culture; this thesis discusses how the term "cancelling" originally came from an unlikely place and how it evolved over the years to come to its current meaning. Lastly, we discuss the effectiveness of cancel culture and whether it might not do more wrong than good. The scope of this thesis is narrowed down to study cancel culture within the literary world. It looks at how readers deal with an author being labelled as problematic. Many readers struggle with whether or not to still support an author who is problematic because they do not want to indirectly support any harmful opinions by still supporting that author financially. This thesis, therefore, focuses on four common approaches readers use to deal with this situation: separating the author from their work, boycotting the author, being aware of the selection you read, and how circumstances differ from author to author and how these affect the decision whether or not to continue to show support. This thesis concludes with a collection of reflections on the situation discussed. First, we discuss some of the concerns people within the literary world have regarding cancel culture, mainly about how cancel culture potentially causes censorship. We also reflect on the approaches mentioned in the second part and their pros and cons. Lastly, we express concern at how people seem to be more concerned with their reputation than the literary value of a book. Most importantly, we conclude that there is no straightforward answer to whether we should still support problematic authors. It is a very personal decision that every reader must make for themselves; however, we emphasise the importance of open debate. Readers need to listen to other opinions than their own and do sufficient research and thinking before making their decision.

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This thesis will underline the issue rooted in a mainstream ideological approach towards the existence of garbage and art in times of raised ecological awareness. Within the realm of a neoliberal stance towards ecological crises, garbage has turned into a critical substance that systematically recalls individual’s responsibilities to the pollution of the earth’s ecosystems. Having entered the domain of art, the ideological approach of ecology is being mirrored in the countless artworks in which garbage is recalling its own critical existence. Throughout this thesis I argue that 21st-century “Trash Art” provides its audience little or no space for critical investigation into the existence of garbage as a politically constructed entity. The morally loaded sculptures or installations made out of detritus provide, instead, visitors with feelings of guilt. In the search to come to a broader understanding of garbage through art, I exemplify how an artistic approach towards material detritus as a cultural and political construct has been flourishing in the 20th century art history. With the power to reflect on issues of inclusion, exclusion and otherness, artists have been systematically using cast-off materials as poetic tools for cultural critique and political dissent. As a way of bringing these reflections to live, I decided to analyze an exhibition that I organized in the frame of my studies related internship. The exhibition “Objects in Transit” which took place in Brussels during the weekend of the 24th and 25th of May, brought the cultural life of garbage to the foreground and builds further upon my thesis’ research.

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This thesis aims at researching how the paradox of choice and the exercise of control are represented in the video game genre called the Interactive Movie Game. This is a choice-based video game with a focus on narrative instead of gameplay. By making choices during dialogue, interacting with the environment, objects and other characters the player is able to influence the development of the story, and eventually the outcome. We live in an era where people seem to want more control, but how much control does the player actually have? This is useful to study because video games are becoming an important part of our culture. Particularly the Interactive Movie Game is interesting, due to its rising popularity and positive response by gamers as well as non-gamers. Therefore, this research also takes a look at its target audience. The Interactive Movie Game has been called by many names and lacks a clear definition. Therefore, this thesis starts by giving it a definition and meaning, with a special focus on its key elements and evolution. By doing a literature review on interactivity and narrativity, two of its main key elements that do not match very well, it will become clear how this genre of video games tries to get the most out of both of them. It can also be concluded that these games aim to have a high replay value and can be situated between a movie and a game, as they combine the interactivity of video games with narrativity and visuals of movies. Afterwards the reasons to play these kinds of games will be studied as well as its value as entertainment media. After creating a theoretical framework of the Interactive Movie Game this thesis studies existing theories on the butterfly effect and the paradox of choice. It is interesting to see how popular culture adapted the butterfly effect in the wrong way and how two of the case studies refer to it constantly. In the next chapter the target audience is studied. We start by looking at different genres of video games, where it can be concluded that Narrative Games are not frequently among them. Therefore, a new list is created. This is complemented by a brief part about how females are represented in video games and what both male and female players search for in video games in general. In the last chapter the first scene of three case studies is analysed in order to attempt to answer the main question. Making choices, gameplay, visuals and target audience are studied in the analysis of three video games: Until Dawn, Life is Strange, Detroit: Become Human. All three of them have specific traits that lend themselves perfectly towards this study. One of the most important discoveries is that the results will show that the player has not as much control as appears to be.

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ABSTRACT Masculinity has been a popular topic within cultural studies and media studies traditions for some time now. However, a tendency towards research that exposes stereotypes and binaries is to be detected. How masculinity is represented on television, especially television targeting a teen audience, needs to be studied as these representations reach a broad audience. Moreover teenagers are in the process of developing ideas about what gender concepts mean to them. To be able to extract meaningful insights about young masculinity on television, specific texts need to be analysed. The aim of this thesis is to explore the representation of masculinity in contemporary teen drama series 13 Reasons Why. By using the qualitative research method of textual analysis, an in-depth investigation has been performed. This thesis presents the variety of masculinity in 13 Reasons Why. Undoubtedly, 13 Reasons Why is a series with an agenda, the makers set out to moralise and lecture their teenage audience. Two main ideas are being conveyed: first that every young man is responsible for his own actions and second that teenagers need to involve trusted adults into their lives. The series depicts some stereotypical images of teen boys, for instance by posing extremes of the good character in opposition to the evil one. Still, a complex and nuanced representation of young men is present as well. Therefore the text contributes significantly to the current debate on masculinity. The male characters of 13 Reasons Why evolve as the narrative progresses and demonstrate a wide variety of (young) masculinity.

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Online dating is alomtegenwoordig is onze hedendaagse samenleving. Kranten en tijdschriften schrijven regelmatig over nieuwe ontwikkelingen; reclamespots op de televisie promoten dating sites en de personages van films en tv-series daten online. Er is echter één medium dat niet vertegenwoordigd is in deze opsomming, namelijk literatuur. Deze thesis onderzoekt bijgevolg of online dating ook literatuur beïnvloedt. Dat is echter een te breed domein om in een thesis te onderzoeken en daarom wordt er in dit onderzoek gefocust op het genre van de populaire romantische roman. Ook een onderzoek naar online dating in al zijn aspecten is te ambitieus voor een masterproef en bijgevolg wordt, meer specifiek, de invloed van online daten op de ervaring en perceptie van romantiek in het genre bestudeerd. De masterpoef is opgedeeld in twee grote delen. De twee eerste hoofdstukken bestaan uit een literatuurstudie van het genre van de populaire romantische roman en van het fenomeen online dating. Het doel van de literatuurstudie is om een beter begrip te krijgen van zowel het literaire genre als het sociale fenomeen en om die kennis vervolgens toe te passen in de case studies. Het tweede deel van deze masterproef bestaat uit twee case studies, namelijk Rachel Gibson’s Sex, Lies and Online Dating en Melissa McClone’s Dream Date with the Millionaire. In beide werken wordt het plot beschreven en de invulling van de essentiële narratieve elementen geanalyseerd. Vervolgens ligt de focus op de vertegenwoordiging van online dating in de romans. Uit het onderzoek blijkt dat online dating in slechts een klein aantal populaire romantische romans te vinden is. Daaruit volgt dat het fenomeen niet beschouwd kan worden als een optioneel narratief element van het genre, aangezien die elementen niet noodzakelijk maar wel erg frequent voorkomen. De inclusie van het fenomeen heeft echter wel een invloed op drie essentiële narratieve elementen, namelijk de samenleving; de ontmoeting en het conflict. Het genre past zich daarnaast aan aan sociaal-culturele veranderingen en online dating aanwenden, sluit hier bij aan. Het moet echter opgemerkt worden dat hoewel het fenomeen deel uitmaakt van het plot, de protagonisten zelf online geen liefde zoeken. Ze hebben een ander motief om zich voor de sites in te schrijven. Het genre past zich bijgevolg maar gedeeltelijk aan aan deze ondertussen geaccepteerde vorm van daten. Beide bevindingen doen vermoeden dat het genre een conventionele manier van liefde zoeken verkiest. Online dating beïnvloedt de protagonisten hun ervaring van liefde door als een trigger te functioneren die een relatie doet ontluiken. Ook al wordt het internet niet gebruikt als een tool om een romantische partner te zoeken, in de case studies zorgt het wel voor een cruciale ontmoetingscontext. De protagonisten zelf doen echter hun best om zo onaantrekkelijk mogelijk over te komen op de sites en bijgevolg diens werking te saboteren. Het fenomeen staat in de werken in een slecht daglicht, wat bijdraagt aan de motivatie om ze niet te gebruiken om een partner te zoeken. Door die ingesteldheid is er ook niet veel schaamte te bespeuren, met uitzondering van een vrouwelijke protagonist die voor een dating site werkt die geassocieerd wordt met hook-ups. Online dating beïnvloedt hun perceptie op liefde, doordat ze, ondanks dat ze niet openstonden voor een nieuwe relatie, toch voor de persoon vallen die ze online ontmoeten en die afwijkt van de doorsnee online dater.