Online trading memes from Reddit and 4chan shaped offline neopopulist politics
Evidence
The new pact between finance and polity has salient political ramifications. To return to the timeline that I sketched out in chapter 1, while the financial crisis of 2008 was a turning point for the exhaustion of the neoliberal promise, the global electoral tremors of 2015–16 marked an apogee of speculative politics. As we have seen, speculative technologies were by then embedded in the fabric of everyday life, suffusing new collective identities and shared mythologies. And while algorithmically generated flows of digital content mediated market trading and social relations alike, the occult memes of Reddit and 4chan leaked out into offline politics, shaping a neopopulist discourse that tampered with trust, liability, and (in)security. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 391
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the financialization/social imagination theme and to how speculative technologies suffuse everyday identities — the core reading purpose. — connects to: Digital speculation platforms amplify populist mobilization beyond traditional social movements — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 698; Web 2.0’s democratic features powered right-wing disinformation campaigns — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 486; Complete anonymity on 4chan powered both internet joke culture and antisocial cruelty. — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 181 (+3 more)
- QUESTION: Worth chasing: the specific mechanism by which 4chan/Reddit memes ‘tampered with trust, liability, and insecurity’ — what did that look like in practice?
Broader Connections
- Digital speculation platforms amplify populist mobilization beyond traditional social movements
#expands(0.90) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 698 - Web 2.0’s democratic features powered right-wing disinformation campaigns
#qualifies(0.75) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 486 - Complete anonymity on 4chan powered both internet joke culture and antisocial cruelty.
#exemplifies(0.75) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 181