Antisocial media: Digital dystopianism as a normative project

Abstract

This article examines the normative underpinnings of dystopianism in popular writing about the internet. Through textual analysis, dystopian concerns are shown to be motivated by shared normative preoccupations: that internet users are irresponsible, that they do not sufficiently value work, and that the pursuit of pleasure online interrupts and impedes users’ desire and ability to become responsible subjects. Building on the antisocial thesis in queer theory and recent work on anxiety in affect studies, the article argues that dystopian anxieties work to produce discursive space for responsible subjecthood that readers are invited to occupy. In this way, it is proposed that digital dystopianism is not simply a descriptive project; it is also, and perhaps more fundamentally, a normative project linked to domination, insofar as it aims to reverse the transformations it describes, soliciting readers to assume responsibility for their bodies, minds, families, communities, and nations.