Woman’s Viral PhD Thesis on the Ethics of Smell Sparks Wild Online Debates

A woman on X (formerly Twitter) unintentionally caused a series of online debates after posting about her Ph.D dissertation on the ethics of smell.

The viral post has over 108 million views as of publishing.

Dr. Ally Louks shared the good news that she was "PhDone" with her degree after passing with "no corrections" last Wednesday (Nov. 27).

After sharing the post, social media erupted with opinions on her dissertation, which is titled "Olfactory Ethics: The Politics of Smell in Modern and Contemporary Prose."

According to the abstract, Louks' research explores "smell’s application in creating and subverting gender, class, sexual, racial and species power structures."

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Louks earned her post-grad degree from Cambridge University in the U.K., where she is currently a professor, and noted the thesis "was written for experts within my discipline and field" after facing some backlash from confused social media users.

"It was not written for a lay [general] audience and this is not how I would communicate my ideas to the average person," she explained in a tweet.

Some people bizarrely called Louks' thesis "woke" and "pretentious."

"This woman is why everything is falling apart," one person tweeted, calling the research "bulls--t."

"The politics of smell? That's the best you could do?" someone else rudely tweeted.

Another called it "a waste of time" in a tweet reply.

On the other hand, not everyone took things so seriously.

Many people made jokes out of the situation, as is the way of X.

"You're worried about the wrong olfactory ethics bro," one person tweeted about the men hating on Louks' work.

Someone else used the viral moment to joke about another person's tweet complaining about people's perfume choices.

Meanwhile, others defended Louks' project and celebrated her intellectual take on the subject matter.

One person called the concept "insanely cool and relevant" and referred to the backlash as "depressing."

Another person tweeted that they'd like to take a look at the resumes of the people sending Louks hate, insinuating that they wouldn't be nearly as impressive.

As for Louks' reaction to the whirlwind response to her hard work, she seems to be taking it all in stride.

"I just know I’m gonna be the talk of the English faculty this week," she tweeted on Dec. 1.

"I’m still genuinely bamboozled by the sheer volume of people entirely mischaracterizing the subject and argument of my thesis. The words are there before them but their interpretation is on a separate plane of existence," she added in another tweet.

She also tweeted that she recognized that the "majority" of people were commenting "with generosity, intellectual curiosity, and kindness."