The notion of 'clickbait' speaks to the intersection of money, technology, and desire, suggesting a cunning ruse to profit from unsavoury inclinations of one kind or another. Clickbait capitalism pursues the idea that the entire contemporary economy is just such a ruse; an elaborate exercise in psychological capture and release.
Pushing beyond rationalist accounts of economic life, this volume puts psychoanalysis and political economy into conversation with the cutting edges of capitalist development. Perennial questions of death, sex, aggression, enjoyment, despair, hope, and revenge are followed onto the terrain of the contemporary, with chapters devoted to social media, online dating apps, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and meme stocks. The result is a unique and compelling portrait of the latest institutions to stage, channel, or reconfigure the psychic energies of political and economic life.
Preface
Introduction: The desire called libidinal economy - Amin Samman
1 Narcissism, rage, avocado toast - Earl Gammon
2 Capital as death denial - Sandy Brian Hager
3 The eroticism of technology and finance - Noam Yuran
4 Digital paranoia in a post-truth world - Jernej Markelj
5 Social networks and serendipitous desire - Emily Rosamond
6 Desiring-infrastructures in the crypto economy - Ludovico Rella
7 Normative unconscious processes and US racial capitalism - Lynne Layton
8 Enjoying inequality - Japhy Wilson
9 Despair and hope among young Korean investors - Cheolung Choi
10 Financialising the eschaton - Amin Samman and Stefano Sgambati
11 Anxiety and self-sabotage in the neoliberal university - Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou and Max Haiven
Conclusion: Click here to end capitalism - Amin Samman
Index
