Dangerous Play in an Age of Technofinance: From the GameStop Hunger Games to the Capitol Hill Jamboree

Abstract

In this paper we explore one dimension of the contemporary cultural politics that gives rise to reactionary formations and movements: the desire for a kind of dangerous play within a financialized world where most people feel trapped in a game they can’t win. We take up three interwoven phenomena from the recent past in the United States, though with implications beyond that context: (a) the GameStop stock-buying frenzy of early 202l, (b) the storming of the US Capitol building on January 6 of that year, and (c) the dramatic rise in popularity of the QAnon conspiracy fantasy that appeared in 2017 and gained significant influence since. By locating these complex participatory phenomena in the context of digitized financialization characterized by gamification, alienation and profound inequalities, we supplement efforts to understand today’s reactionary imagination. We argue that all three might be seen as, in part, forms of dangerous play that both emerge from, rebel against and also, contradictorily, help to reproduce or entrench dominant inequalities. Hence those who wish to counter these reactionary tendencies or propose more radical responses cannot limit themselves to critique; they must also contend with what animates these forms of alienated play.