YouTube utopianism: Social media profanation and the clicktivism of capitalist critique

Abstract

Utopia is a complex and resilient concept. This article extends theory relating utopia to consumer culture and social media. After identifying two main schools of utopian consumer research, termed metopianism and wetopianism, the article inquires how social media discourses of utopianism challenge capitalism and what these challenges suggest about contemporary consumer activism. Sites of utopian discourse on YouTube concerning Walt Disney's original EPCOT plans, Jacque Fresco's Venus Project, and Elon Musk's Silicon Valley vision of the future are sources of netnographic data. The findings first focus on various discourses comparing political and economic systems, environmental effects, technology, and the reflexive, playful, imaginative, emotional, and engaged aspects of utopianist messages. Next, findings reveal worshipful attitudes towards the three charismatic utopian entrepreneurs and their visions. Utopian discourse on social media is clicktivism, but it is also an important and relevant social phenomenon that reveals the spectrum of forms of online political participation.