Geert Lovink is a media theorist, internet critic and author of Zero Comments (Routledge, 2007), Networks Without a Cause (Polity, 2012), Social Media Abyss (Polity, 2016) and Sad By Design (Pluto, 2019). He founded the Institute of Network Cultures at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and teaches at the European Graduate School.

• Series Preface Acknowledgements Introduction: Society of the Social1. Overcoming the Disillusioned Internet 2. Social Media as Ideology 3. Distraction and its Discontents 4. Sad by Design5. Media Network Platform: Three Architectures 6. From Registration to Extermination: On Technological Violence 7. Narcissus Confirmed: Technologies of the Minimal Selfie 8. Mask Design: Aesthetics of the Faceless 9. Memes as Strategy: European Origins and Debates 10. Before Building the Avant-Garde of the Commons Notes Bibliography

'Dystopian ... a scathing indictment of a technology that transforms the very notion of self into a sharing platform.'

Geert Lovink is a media theorist, internet critic and author of Zero Comments (Routledge, 2007), Networks Without a Cause (Polity, 2012), Social Media Abyss (Polity, 2016) and Sad By Design (Pluto, 2019). He founded the Institute of Network Cultures at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and teaches at the European Graduate School.

• Series Preface Acknowledgements Introduction: Society of the Social1. Overcoming the Disillusioned Internet 2. Social Media as Ideology 3. Distraction and its Discontents 4. Sad by Design5. Media Network Platform: Three Architectures 6. From Registration to Extermination: On Technological Violence 7. Narcissus Confirmed: Technologies of the Minimal Selfie 8. Mask Design: Aesthetics of the Faceless 9. Memes as Strategy: European Origins and Debates 10. Before Building the Avant-Garde of the Commons Notes Bibliography

'Dystopian ... a scathing indictment of a technology that transforms the very notion of self into a sharing platform.'

Geert Lovink is a media theorist, internet critic and author of Zero Comments (Routledge, 2007), Networks Without a Cause (Polity, 2012), Social Media Abyss (Polity, 2016) and Sad By Design (Pluto, 2019). He founded the Institute of Network Cultures at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and teaches at the European Graduate School.

• Series Preface Acknowledgements Introduction: Society of the Social1. Overcoming the Disillusioned Internet 2. Social Media as Ideology 3. Distraction and its Discontents 4. Sad by Design5. Media Network Platform: Three Architectures 6. From Registration to Extermination: On Technological Violence 7. Narcissus Confirmed: Technologies of the Minimal Selfie 8. Mask Design: Aesthetics of the Faceless 9. Memes as Strategy: European Origins and Debates 10. Before Building the Avant-Garde of the Commons Notes Bibliography

'Dystopian ... a scathing indictment of a technology that transforms the very notion of self into a sharing platform.'