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The Beauty of Ugliness: Preserving while Communicating Online with Shared Graphic Photos

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Abstract

In this paper, we report on interviews with 11 Shia content creators who create and share graphic, bloody photos of Tatbeer, a religious ritual involving self-harm practices on Ashura, the death anniversary of the prophet Muhammad’s grandson. We show how graphic images serve as an object of communication in religious practices with the local community, the inner-self, and a wider audience. In particular, we highlight how content creators appropriated, in their own words, “ugly” photos to preserve the authenticity and beauty of their rituals while communicating their own interpretation of such rituals to others. We suggest that ugliness may be regarded as a useful resource to inform systems that seek to invite dialogue with marginalized or minority groups.

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Notes

  1. The cousin and the only son-in-law of prophet Muhammad and father of Hussain.

  2. In Arabic, Ashura simply means “tenth.”

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Acknowledgements

The first author is funded by the College of Computer and Information Sciences in King Saud University, Saudi Arabia. We are very grateful to the participants of our study. We thank Mujahed Almadani for assistance with translation and data collection. Finally, we thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback.

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  1. School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA

    Majdah Alshehri & Norman Makoto Su

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  1. Majdah Alshehri
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Correspondence to Majdah Alshehri.

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Alshehri, M., Su, N.M. The Beauty of Ugliness: Preserving while Communicating Online with Shared Graphic Photos. Comput Supported Coop Work 27, 355–388 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-018-9331-3

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