Description
Book SynopsisWe live in a time of engineered intimacy, toxic memes and online addiction. Can we ever break free?
Trade Review'Dystopian ... a scathing indictment of a technology that transforms the very notion of self into a sharing platform.' -- Eva Illouz, author of 'Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation'
'Sad by Design: on Platform Nihilism, despite the title, is not a sad book. It dissects our digital addictions with the dynamite power of critical theory. It's a savage journey into the heart of the digital self, and a wake-up call to break free of our own enslavement' -- Donatella Della Ratta, author of 'Shooting a Revolution: Visual Media and Warfare in Syria'
'Geert Lovink, who is expertly familiar with digital dynamics - technological as well as social - provides in this book a searing criticism of platform nihilism, considered above all as a perversion of computational design' -- Bernard Stiegler, author of 'The Age of Disruption: Technology and Madness in Computational Capitalism'
Table of ContentsSeries Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Society of the Social
1. Overcoming the Disillusioned Internet
2. Social Media as Ideology
3. Distraction and its Discontents
4. Sad by Design
5. Media Network Platform: Three Architectures
6. From Registration to Extermination: On Technological Violence
7. Narcissus Confirmed: Technologies of the Minimal Selfie
8. Mask Design: Aesthetics of the Faceless
9. Memes as Strategy: European Origins and Debates
10. Before Building the Avant-Garde of the Commons
Notes
Bibliography
