Inhuman Networks: Social Media and the Archaeology of Connection

291 Pages·2016·3.19 MB·English

by  Grant Bollmer

Inhuman networks
ii
Inhuman networks
soCIaL meDIa anD the arChaeoLoGY
oF ConneCtIon
Grant Bollmer
Bloomsbury academic
an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc
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First published 2016
© Grant Bollmer, 2016
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bollmer, Grant, author.
Title: Inhuman networks: social media and the archaeology of connection /
Grant Bollmer.
Description: New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016003586 (print) | LCCN 2016011462 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781501316159 (hardback) | ISBN 9781501316166 (ePub) |
ISBN 9781501316173 (ePDF)
Subjects: LCSH: Mass media and culture. | Mass media and technology. | Social media. |
BISAC: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies. | TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING /
General. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural.
Classification: LCC P94.6.B65 2016 (print) | LCC P94.6 (ebook) |
DDC 302.23–dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016003586
ISBN: HB: 978-1-5013-1615-9
ePub: 978-1-5013-1616-6
ePDF: 978-1-5013-1617-3
Cover image © Alexandra Ribeiro / EyeEm / Getty Images
Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
Contents
List of Figures viii
acknowledgments x
Introduction: Connectivity, Flow, Citizenship, Archaeology 1
how to make a person into an internet router 1
Governing the inhuman 6
Imagining a technological humanism 10
social media beyond social media 14
toward a media archaeology of social media 16
Chapters 18
Coda 20
Part One: Network Archaeologies 23
The network, or, the other of western modernity 23
1 Biology: Vital Technologies, Anatomical Networks 27
Blood and the machine 27
The weaving of networks 30
networks of the body 33
Vitality and the management of fluidity 37
The body as a network of fabric and fluid 41
Pathologies of the networked body 43
2 Society: Railroads, Red Scares, and Racism 46
Vitality, technology, society 46
Liberal capitalism and the unification of the iron network 48
material chaos and immaterial control 52
social networks, communism, and anti-semitism 57
The social network as an anti-semitic political imaginary 65
3 Economy: Banking on a Networked Society 68
money makes the network flow ’round 68
how disconnection apparently led to the Great Depression 69
how to make a bank a social network 73
Contents
money as a social bond 85
From economy to universality 89
Coda Universality: From Network Archaeologies to Nodal Citizenship 98
Part Two: Nodal Citizens 109
Data as citizens 109
Citizenship, states, networks 111
4 Death: Living Forever on Social Media 115
millions now living will never die 115
animating the recordings of the deceased 119
“to be haunted virtually is just another way to stay connected” 121
Your data are the real you, your body is extraneous 125
5 Labor: Giving Life to Data 134
The economics and aesthetics of bots 134
The political economy of social media 138
The self as algorithm, or, your mind is a bunch of bots 143
The cultural significance of click fraud 149
6 Truth: The Politics of Performing the Total Self 156
truth in data 156
The revolution will be visible 158
Postcolonial blogging and the speech of the subaltern 162
“transparency” as political agency 164
Identity, visibility, and nodal citizenship 168
Failed nodal citizens 171
Part Three: Beyond Social Media, or, a World Without People 177
From social media to social networks 177
networks, neoliberalism, and the problem of the exterior 178
7 Contagion: The Inevitable Failure of Connectivity 183
epidemics of connectivity 183
Pathologies of self-management 187
“Infectobesity,” or, the epidemiology of fat 188
social networks of contagious obesity 192
economic flows, network pathologies 199
The unbearable pointlessness of doing anything 202
vi
Contents
8 (Political) Theory: How to Disempower Friends and
Pathologize People 204
The network and the apocalypse 204
The political intimacy of connection 210
Complexity, inevitability, unknowability 220
Critical theory, climate change, annihilation 226
a world without a people 230
notes 233
Index 271
vii
LIst oF FIGures
Figure 1: mark, a homeless hotspot, pictured with his 4G miFi router at
the 2012 south by southwest Conference and Festival. 1
Figures 2 and 3: advertisements for Facebook’s internet.org, sydney,
australia, February 2015. 4
Figure 4: a “head-dress” made of “chenille and bead net-work.”
From G. Brodie, “Fashions for February,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine,
February 1864. 32
Figure 5: william harvey and the discovery of blood circulation.
From harvey’s Anatomical Treatise on the Movement of the Heart and
Blood in Animals. 40
Figure 6: nesta webster’s 1926 diagram of “The socialist network.” 61
Figure 7: nesta webster’s 1922 “Chart of the world revolution.” 62
Figure 8: tom Dickson managing the morality of his employees in
American Madness. 75
Figure 9: The bank robbery in American Madness. 75
Figure 10: Communication and gossip in American Madness. 76
Figure 11: Panic in American Madness. 76
Figure 12: Contemplating suicide in American Madness. 77
Figure 13: Contemplating suicide in It’s a Wonderful Life. 80
Figure 14: a young George Bailey dreams of financial prosperity in
It’s a Wonderful Life. 81
Figure 15: “every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings,” from
It’s a Wonderful Life. 81
Figure 16: “own Your own home” in It’s a Wonderful Life. 82
Figure 17: “remember no man is a failure who has friends,” from
It’s a Wonderful Life. 83
Figure 18: Community and friendship as a flow of money in
It’s a Wonderful Life. 84
Figure 19: Paul Baran’s diagrams for centralized, decentralized, and distributed
networks. 100
List of Figures
Figure 20: Paul Baran’s diagram for an informational network that would
connect multiple, different forms of technology. 101
Figure 21: arPanet, march 1977. 106
Figure 22: Zoe reveals her digital immortality to her father in Caprica. 116
Figure 23: Caprica’s first Cylon. 116
Figure 24: Google’s reCaPtCha. 151
Figure 25: “Free amina arraf.” a viral image posted on Facebook
during the political uprisings in syria, protesting the detainment of
amina abdullah arraf al-omari. 167
Figure 26: encountering the “blanks” of The World’s End for the first time. 204
Figure 27: The warehouse of “blanks” in The World’s End. 205
Figure 28: remaining forever youthful in The World’s End. 206
Figure 29: The network withdraws in The World’s End. 207
Figure 30: Jason russell’s Kony 2012. 213
Figure 31: Kony 2012: “right now there are more people on Facebook than
there were on the planet 200 years ago.” 213
Figure 32: Kony 2012: “humanity’s greatest desire is to belong and connect. . .” 214
Figure 33: The connective power of social media in Kony 2012. 214
Figure 34: The connective power of social media in Kony 2012. 215
Figure 35: Kony 2012: “every single person in the world started this way. . .” 215
ix