FCJ-160 Politics is Serious Business: Jacques Rancière, Griefing, and the Re-Partitioning of the (Non)Sensical

Steve Holmes. Department of English, George Mason University. Lulzpolitik ‘We do not sleep, we do not eat, and we do not feel remorse. We will tear you apart from outside and in, we have all the time in the world.’ (Anonymous) Trolling is a difficult phenomenon to classify in terms of its political orientation. Some researchers such as John Kelley (2011) suggest that groups like Anonymous can be situated within the anarchist political tradition. Anarchists tend to privilege bottom-up, decentralized, and horizontal networks over top-down state or corporate control (Graeber 2004), and a similar attitude and organizational structure are evident in many of Anonymous’ past activities. Others are more skeptical. E. Gabriella Coleman (2011) notes that trolls’ cyberactivism lacks a singular agenda and a sustained commitment to political coordination with other actors and institutions. Along different lines, Lincoln Dahlberg (2001) has questioned whether trolls can be considered as valid participants […]