Clickbait Capitalism: Economies of Desire in the Twenty-First Century - Paperback

by Amin Samman (Editor), Earl Gammon (Editor)

The notion of 'clickbait' speaks to the intersection of money, technology, and desire, suggesting a cunning ruse to profit from unsavoury inclinations of one kind or another. Clickbait capitalism pursues the idea that the entire contemporary economy is just such a ruse; an elaborate exercise in psychological capture and release.

Pushing beyond rationalist accounts of economic life, this volume puts psychoanalysis and political economy into conversation with the cutting edges of capitalist development. Perennial questions of death, sex, aggression, enjoyment, despair, hope, and revenge are followed onto the terrain of the contemporary, with chapters devoted to social media, online dating apps, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and meme stocks. The result is a unique and compelling portrait of the latest institutions to stage, channel, or reconfigure the psychic energies of political and economic life.

Back Jacket

'As the pursuit of profit becomes increasingly surreal, virtual, and exotic by the day, the symbiosis between libidinal and financial flows demands to be rethought. Clickbait capitalism offers a stimulating and game-changing introduction to how the current confluence of economy and desire pre-empts our behaviour, structures our identity, influences our decisions, and tugs at our wallets.'
Dominic Pettman, The New School

'Lie back on the couch with this book and let it analyse your triggers and traumas about debt and inequality. Ramble down the royal road of the unconscious, interpreting the collective delirium from Cryptokitties to cryogenics, Squid Game to GameStop. These bracing chapters, invoking theorists from Adorno to Zizek, fuse psychology and economics to diagnose the neuroses of our moment. The results are electric!'
Susan Zieger, University of California, Riverside

Desire plays a crucial yet poorly understood role within economic life. This is increasingly untenable as potent new cultures of desire take shape around the intersection of digital technology and finance.

Clickbait capitalism stages an encounter between psychoanalysis, political economy, and the calling cards of twenty-first-century capitalism. Drawing on a theoretical tradition known as 'libidinal economy', the book engages digital-economic life as a site of ongoing psychological capture and release. What emerges is a unique survey of the moods and structures of feeling that underwrite capitalism today, from online paranoia and the ecstatic mania of the crypto-boom to the escape and revenge fantasies of the indebted young.

Adopting a pluralistic approach, the book offers a range of new perspectives on the psychological foundations and ongoing viability of capitalism as a social formation and economic system.

Author Biography

Amin Samman is Senior Lecturer in International Political Economy at City, University of London

Earl Gammon is Senior Lecturer in Global Political Economy at the University of Sussex