Everybody Wants to be a Fascist Online: Psychoanalysis and the Digital Architecture of Fascism

Abstract

Félix Guattari and Franco Berardi have both argued that media ecologies and psychic ecologies are intimately intertwined and as such, any exploration of the collective unconscious must engage with how the mind is formed with and through media. This understanding of networks of interdependence necessitates an exploration of how platformization has impacted users” collective psyche. Drawing from psychosocial theory, psychoanalysis and the work of Félix Guattari, this article analizes the micropolitics of desire of digital platforms, with an explicit focus on how algorithmic structures amplify extreme Right content, allowing fascisms to metastasis throughout digital spaces. It will first examine the algorithmic architecture of social media platforms, demonstrating how these digital spaces lock in and over-code desire through recursive feedback loops that amplify extremism. Following this will be an exploration of the excess of desire that is cut off and left as a remainder partial object, termed the “fascist abject,” and what role this process plays in the production of subjectivity.