The Parasocialists

Posted: March 11, 2025

Cultural Studies Salon Seminar with Liam Mitchell

a grid of 45 squares each with a cartoon face of a character of the Hasanabi broadcast

Event Details

  • Thursday, March 20, 2025
    7:30 PM - 9:00 PM
    Traill College
    Building: Fry Lodge
    Room: 104

More Information

The online left is a networked social body. This means it has a shape. This talk will trace the contours of the online left by examining the shapes that it takes as it responds to contemporary forms of fascism, particularly Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. A chronology of responses to the genocide ranging from the rapid (the shitposters of Twitter and the react streamers of Twitch) to the measured (debate bros and podcasters) to the considered (video essayists) situates a populist politics inside popular media.

Liam Mitchell is an Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at Trent University.  His work theorizes the relationship between media, culture, and politics.  He is the author of Ludopolitics: Videogames Against Control (Zero Books, 2018) and The Parasocialists: React Streamers, Video Essayists, Debate Bros, Podcasters, and the Cultural Politics of the Online Left (punctum books, forthcoming).

Contact Info

culturalstudies-phd@trentu.ca

Trent University respectfully acknowledges it is located on the treaty and traditional territory of the Mississauga Anishnaabeg. We offer our gratitude to First Peoples for their care for, and teachings about, our earth and our relations. May we honour those teachings.

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