| The Circle of the Snake: Nostalgia and Utopia in the Age of Big Tech Contributor(s): Tanner, Grafton (Author) |
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ISBN: 1789040221 ISBN-13: 9781789040227 Publisher: Zero Books OUR PRICE: $18.95 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: November 2020 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Technology & Engineering | Social Aspects - Social Science | Popular Culture - Political Science | Utopias |
| Physical Information: 0.4" H x 5.5" W x 8.5" (0.40 lbs) 176 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Shocked by 9/11, the Great Recession, digital anxiety, and ecological collapse, the West suffers from nostalgia. People everywhere yearn for a utopian version of the past that never existed. Desperate for relief, many long to escape from the present. Some will stop at nothing to achieve it. In his essential new book, Grafton Tanner, author of Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts, argues that our nostalgia today is partly a consequence of the attention economy. At a time when historical literacy is crucial, and old prejudices are percolating into the present, Big Tech's predictive algorithms are locking us into nostalgic feedback loops. The result is a precarious society with its gaze fixed on the good old days. Spanning from the ancient Sophists to Black Mirror, The Circle of the Snake is at once a reckoning with the myth of digital utopia and an incisive analysis of nostalgia as a weapon to spread fascism. |
