“GITA IS THE CHILDFREE ONE, YOU ARE THE COMPLICATED ONE!”: NETIZENS’ STANDPOINT TOWARDS CHILDFREE ISSUES IN THE YOUTUBE COMMENTS COLUMN “ANALISA CHANNEL”

Abstract

Technological advancements have enabled consumers to become producers who interact with one another. Unfortunately, interactions among Indonesian netizens often result in polarization between those who agree and disagree, leading to comment wars, as seen in the case of Gita Savitri’s childfree discourse on the YouTube channel Analisa Channel. The term childfree refers to a woman’s or a couple’s choice not to have children. On one hand, this decision poses no inherent issue as reproduction is an individual right; however, it becomes contentious when publicly expressed and when it clashes with Indonesia’s cultural landscape, which is deeply rooted in religious and patriarchal norms. This study analyzed 972 comment texts from the Analisa Channel YouTube video discussing Gita Savitri’s childfree stance to examine how netizens respond to the issue. The findings show that netizens expressed opposing, supportive, and neutral attitudes toward childfree, each articulated through arguments influenced by ideologies such as religious conservatism, feminism, and family traditionalism. In the context of pro and contra debates, opponents of childfree emerged as the dominant group, voicing situated knowledge and advocating gendered divisions of labor from patriarchal and Islamic perspectives. Nonetheless, voices from subordinate groups also surfaced, asserting women’s rights to choose. These voices were facilitated by the affordances of social media, which create a space for individuals to express their opinions and positions freely.