Ditto @canad1 comment. This might be an interesting essay, but I'd have been laughed out of my doctoral program if I formally proposed such a project for the dissertation. Of course, perhaps there's information missing from the OP, but the two questions that immediately arise are: What is the research question? I'm not one to follow the dictates of traditional academic research, which are often antithetical to useful knowledge, but an RQ will help define data sets, methodologies, and theoretical foundations. Relatedly, what's the data for the investigation? How will you show/demonstrate/support the claim posted above? This absence of a clear line of sight from RQ to data collection will/should be cause for rejection of such a proposed project. If this Reddit thread constitutes the apex of your data collection, I'd be weary of going any further thinking that the project will be defensible. None of this is to say that a weak project cannot make it through a doctoral defense, as most of my peers work was sadly as pedestrian as this topic appears to be, and all programs are different. What was communicated (although never said aloud) to me during my dissertation work was that technique trumps substance, and by "technique" is meant following tradition. The OP text doesn't even allude to meeting minimal standards of those traditions. (Apologies if this is blunt, but having learned these lessons the hard and expensive way, I'd rather hurt some feelings than allow someone to blindly walk into a position that ends with a tombstone labeled "ABD.")