Megan Phelps-Roper was born into and raised as a part of Westboro Baptist Church. From an early age, she was preached to about the teachings of God and participated in the church’s many protests, The community saw her as someone with potential, giving her duties in these protests and even allowing her to conduct interviews with outlets outside of the congregation. Online, the church had a website wherein public chat rooms, Phelps-Roger would debate and argue with people on Westboro’s beliefs. She had seen this as spreading God’s truth and did not hold doubts in what Westboro promoted. It wasn’t until she began using Twitter in 2009 that slowly started to change her perspective. At first, she loved to argue with users online and would tweet vulgar messages promoting Westboro’s beliefs. One tweet that she had posted following Ted Kennedy’s death states, “He defied God at every turn, teaching rebellion against His laws. Ted’s in hell!” (Chen, Unfollow). This among many other tweets were celebratory of the negatives that happened in society. If a celebrity had died, a natural disaster occured, or conflict struck, Phelps would tweet with celebration that God was punishing them for their sins. Over time, her platform began to expand with more followers and more people reaching out to her. The first time that Phelps-Roger questioned her own actions was with hearing the death of Brittany Murphy. She had a new emotion of empathy for someone she was raised to despise. Someone who was a sinner and was to be sent to hell. In fear of her own emotions, Phelps-Roger pushed them back and held to the beliefs of Westboro. Phelps-Roger continued to use Twitter to argue with others, but her approach was calm and with an underlying sense of humor. Slowly she began to build relationships with users that she had been tweeting back and forth with. Some of these people included Graham Hughes, David Abitbol, and C.G. They would question, challenge, and dispute about the message Westboro was spreading. After these exchanges she had she would question what Westboro was promoting, consulting in her mother Shirley for reassurance. As time went on and her account began to gain traction, members of Westboro raised eyebrows. They asked for more discretion about what they were sharing about their congregation online. What began the downfall in Phelps-Roger’s beliefs was the relationship she formed with an anonymous user, C.G. They would communicate through Words with Friends sharing personal details about themselves, about Westboro, but most importantly was the way C.G. made Phelps-Roger feel. She was submerged into a different culture in their conversations, hearing and talking about things she never knew outside of Westboro. She described her feelings towards C.G. as, “It was so real, that feeling of wanting to be with him,” Phelps-Roper told me. She woke up fighting back tears. “He was not a good person, according to the church,” (Chen, Unfollow). The relationship with C.G. gave her an insight and exploration into what she was not able to experience. It is what changed her emotions towards those who were considered “sinners” by Westboro. She began to empathize with their emotions and immerse herself into the culture of those outside.
Phelps-Rogers used Twitter at first to promote the beliefs of Westboro and conflict with those that rebutted. Her congregation saw this and placed her as an essential role in spreading their role. After first noticing her influence, her sister wrote an email to the congregation saying, “Now Megan has 87 followers and more are trickling in all the time. So every time we find something else to picket, or have some new video or picture we want to post (or just something that we see on the news and want to comment about)—87 people get first-hand, gospel commentary from Megan Marie.” (Chen, Unfollow). In making this comment, Phelps-Rogers’ sister urges members to feed into the account and what Phelp-Roger was doing. I believe that this email is what sparked Phelps-Roger’s motivation to use her Twitter platform. It empowered her to go back and forth with users online with snarky and sarcastic replies. She used underlying humor and played into the hateful messages she would receive. In other words, Phelps-Roger believed that having this approach made it easier for her to get her message across. I can agree with her that when fighting with users online, it is easier to come off with a calm and playful tone. It makes the other user want to engage with you more if you aren’t using hateful words. As her platform grew, her relationships with users online became more friendly. She built relationships with certain users that later influenced her to evolve in her beliefs. I believe that social media played the sole role in changing her perspective. Through her relationships with users online, she says herself, “It was like I was becoming part of a community,” Phelps-Roger said. By following her opponents’ feeds, she absorbed their thoughts on the world, learned what food they ate, and saw photographs of their babies. “I was beginning to see them as human,” she said.” (Chen, Unfollow). Social media was able to bring her in closeness with something she had never seen before, society for what it was. Although they attended public schools, I don’t believe Phelps-Roger ever truly was able to experience what a childhood or independence was. Her platform is what gave her this. Phelps-Roger is able to discuss and read about things she would otherwise be sheltered from by Westboro. The use of Twitter is what was able to change her beliefs.
Throughout the conversations that Phelps-Roger had with others online, she found a common trend. If she was calm, funny, and a little sarcasm in her responses she would receive more engaging conversations. She initially thrived off rebutting their claims, but as time went on she developed relationships. Users like Abitol and C.G. were some of the people she was able to connect with. I believe that their calm tone and approach of asking about Westboro instead of accusing is what created these relationships. What does this tell us about conflict? I believe that it tells us that an angry approach is not always the correct one. Someone who is composed in their own words and listens to the opposing argument will go much farther than someone who is angry and close-minded. Most people today in society’s current issues handle it with this angry approach. As you can see, it is not successful. The words and approach that we use in our conversations is far more important than we consider it.
If I were to meet Phelps-Roger today and be able to ask her anything it would be directly related to her influence online. I would ask, “What do you think was the crucial part of your online persona that was able to change your beliefs?” I would ask this because I am curious about what online made her make this decision. Was it the connection between her and C.G. that was the driving factor, or was a larger influence of multiple people? Obviously, some of these questions seemed to be answered in the article but I would love to have a deeper conversation on the subject. The change that she went through with her beliefs is fascinating to me and I would want to learn more about the motives behind it.
