Sad by Design
On Platform Nihilism
Published on 20. May 2019
Book
Paperback/Softback
192 pages
978-0-7453-3934-4 (ISBN)
Description
Sadness is now a design problem. The highs and lows of melancholy are coded into social media platforms. After all the clicking, browsing, swiping and liking, all we are left with is the flat and empty aftermath of time lost to the app.
Sad by Design offers a critical analysis of the growing social media controversies such as fake news, toxic viral memes and online addiction. The failed search for a grand design has resulted in depoliticised internet studies unable to generate either radical critique or a search for alternatives.
Geert Lovink calls for us to embrace the engineered intimacy of social media, messenger apps and selfies, because boredom is the first stage of overcoming 'platform nihilism'. Then, after the haze, we can organise to disrupt the data extraction industries at their core.
Sad by Design offers a critical analysis of the growing social media controversies such as fake news, toxic viral memes and online addiction. The failed search for a grand design has resulted in depoliticised internet studies unable to generate either radical critique or a search for alternatives.
Geert Lovink calls for us to embrace the engineered intimacy of social media, messenger apps and selfies, because boredom is the first stage of overcoming 'platform nihilism'. Then, after the haze, we can organise to disrupt the data extraction industries at their core.
Reviews / Votes
'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'More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 11 mm
Weight
249 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7453-3934-4 (9780745339344)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
05/2019
1st Edition
Pluto Press
€14.49
Available for download
Person
Geert Lovink is a media theorist, internet critic and author of Zero Comments (Routledge, 2007), Networks Without a Cause (Polity, 2012), Social Media Abyss (Polity, 2016) and Sad By Design (Pluto, 2019). He founded the Institute of Network Cultures at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and teaches at the European Graduate School.
Content
Series 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
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