There’s a nice article on recent viral events in the latest issue of Dark Matter…
On the Borders of the Political Event in the Age of Hashtags: From #BlackLivesMatter to #JeSuisCharlie by Oana Parvan
“We choose the faction and unleash our social media gestures, engage in debates and sometimes take to the streets. But what triggers our affiliations and actions? What empathy patterns are activated in the process? How is this empathy constructed from below and above? And how can we build a critical stance around the way events affectively colonize our interiority and possibility of action?”
“What #BlackLivesMatter and #JeSuisCharlie reveal is an uneasy political truth. No political emergence will be possible without conceiving the possibility of new alliances, and reflecting on privilege polarization. For the political is not locked in the Idea, but surrounds us. Giving a chance for unpredictable connections and yet unimagined possibles, might be a necessary prospect in the years to come, since, as Massumi claims:
What you can do, your potential, is defined by your connectedness, the way you’re connected and how intensely, not your ability to separate off and decide by yourself. Autonomy is always connective, it’s not being apart, it’s being in, being in a situation of belonging that gives you certain degrees of freedom, or powers of becoming, powers of emergence.[38]
VIRALITY 