"These violent delights have violent ends: Or, navigating fear and anger through social media."

This paper seeks to understand the emotional and sociopolitical consequences of fear and anger as produced, amplified, and circulated through social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok. It will look specifically at the context of Moygashel, a working-class Loyalist area in Mid Ulster, Northern Ireland and received a substantial amount of attention during July due to burning an effigy of migrant workers on top of their 11th of July bonfires, a tradition that has been prominent in the Loyalist communities since the 18th century. Throughout the past few months, it is interesting to see the use of social media by the Moygashel Bonfire Association to begin creating both fear and anger towards the migrant population within Dungannon. When thinking about social media itself, it is worthwhile considering the power it has over people in not only reflecting emotional state but also actively curating and incentivizing them. Through this, I will consider the politics of emotion in public space, and how that changes when those emotions are published online as well as using both a digital and physical ethnographic approach and content analysis. I hope to identify recurring patterns on the Bonfire Association Facebook page, how it encourages fear and anger, but it is only the group that can provide any solutions for these emotions. Perhaps, most importantly, ta central argument to this paper is that fear and anger should not be considered isolated emotions, but rather intersecting emotions which shape perceptions of both self and others. Through this ‘othering’ of migrants and asylum seekers, and the normalisation of violence in public space, which is manifested through social media, I seek to understand the ways in which social media creates a springboard for the emotions of fear and anger. Ultimately, I aim to offer an analysis of how digital platforms shape emotions and vice versa whilst also understanding how the absence of political stability from the government encourages this discourse.