(8) On (Creative) Subversion
What are we trying to subvert? On subverting subversion and creative means of resistance on social platforms of today.
This is a super long-awaited piece for me that I have been meaning to put into writing since 2019. I have tried to explain creative subversion to a few people with little success, and I knew I wanted to put my abstract floaties into more solid language. I hope this can clarify what I have been thinking about as the counterpart of digital gentrification. I deeply urge you to read my first piece “Digital Gentrification 101” as creative subversion builds on the notion. Publishing this piece feels like a big milestone as I wouldn’t have started this substack if it wasn’t for this research. Thank you to all who have been following me thus far! :~)
Google defines subversion (n.) as “the undermining of the power and authority of an established system or institution.” Wikipedia adds its Latin origin, subvertere or overthrow, to refer to subversion as a process of contradiction, sabotage, and/or reversal of established power structures.
Subversion, specifically creative subversion (but more on “creative” later), is a term I have been sitting with for quite some time now as the counterpart of digital gentrification. There are two parts of the definition I want to address: establishment and process.
Subversion exists to disrupt pre-existing structures: social norms, hierarchy, authority, and power. An establishment means a history of dominance, an entrenchment in ways of doing. However, the frames of the establishment that define the social politics of today can feel fickle in digital translation. There is a fixture in variance surged by hyper-consumption and virality to outperform the relevance of yesterday. Subversion aims to rebel against dominance, but what is dominant, at least in the digital space? We have reached a point where the concept of subversion has become a core in itself. Aimless ubiquity leads to an exhaustion of subversion, an incessant pendulum swing, with an effort to subvert subversion in a constant loop online.
Tom Boland believes there is “infinity” in social media:
“Nothing is immune to subversion, yet the infinitude of subversion means that being subverted is not definitive or decisive but only a prelude to the redeployment or redirection of critique as counter subversion.”
After all, what we aim to subvert in the current day will look different twenty years from now. This “infinity” relies on a specific framework that makes up social media, which Boland also believes to be a “liminal space.” Liminality is well equipped for worldbuilding, blurring the borders of reality and fiction. In the liminal space of social media, equity is feigned — notions of oppression and establishment of the real world don’t exactly translate digitally one to one; they are constantly abstracted, hidden, and convoluted for users to stay unaware, and if they do, then to dismiss and forget.
We make a comparative analysis of the characteristics of demure vs brat, watch highlights of DNC, and repost the “conversations of now” to subvert, then forget. We share ideas, comments, and ephemera that live digitally, but we move on. We do so to make room for more, to consume more, and to do it all over again. We are used to the same rodeo and digital engagement often feels far removed or even inconsequential to the physical world. Stepping out of the liminal means facing the physical — a more complex fixture of being that is not as easily abstracted. Living in the physical ~ a society, if you will ~ there is an urgency to resist the physical establishments of oppression that also beget the digital space. At least here, these frames have not changed much to require a great pendulum swing to the other side.
This brings me to process. Subversion is about process, the act of doing that is also ever-changing. When there is a clear subject that requires subversion, the process becomes clearer. For digital gentrification, it is about centralized power. About profit and monopoly. About control and surveillance. About displacement. About lost web and autonomy… and the list goes on.
Wikipedia describes subversion as a “manpower-intensive strategy”, a rupture that does not simply resort to warfare, terror, or violence, but perhaps a movement incited by and for the community. Subversion is a process that can disrupt and resist at various levels, even as individuals, but without collective movements, these efforts are difficult to actualize.
In my previous post, I shared a schema that connected how digital gentrification “ignites” creative subversion, which then “resists” digital gentrification. I add “creative” in front of subversion to explain the work to resist digital gentrification on the web because I believe this practice requires an imaginative reinvention of tools and frameworks handed to us. I see this method as an “alternate appropriation”: novel disruptions of the built foundations of such tools.
From different gatherings and observations, I wanted to better compartmentalize how I think about various facets of creative subversion. I realize that tech resistance is work that has been ever-present even before I was born. This is a non-exhaustive list that doesn’t delve much into theory (which will be coming soon…), but more so into the physical methodologies of craft and “doing”.
Creative Subversion within dominant platforms
For the lack of better phrasing, I have resorted to “dominant platforms” to define the main social platforms/tools (think facebook, instagram, tiktok, but not limited to simply social media) that perpetuate facets of digital gentrification. With almost every platform or digital invention existing to serve a business model built for profit, realistically, it is difficult to entirely avoid these platforms. Yet, users have found modes of alternate appropriations of these tools, redefining how platforms should be used, all while working within the constraints of the built designs.
Escape the algorithm*
Algorithmic sorting makes it easier for the digital to stay a homogenous echo chamber that flattens culture. It is also a method of language identification for easier content detection and moderation. It is no news that this method of surveillance creates censorship and policing around language and content that goes “against the community guidelines” — a loose framework built by the creators holding centralized power of what should be deemed as platform “ethics”. However, we often see user censorship and content moderation in works of resistance and organization, from Palestine to Yemen. Users have adapted accordingly to find new creative communication alterations such as countersurveillance type that includes $ymb0l$ and a*terisk* to gray out words to be undetectable. On the other hand, some users are taking advantage of the algorithm by creating seemingly irrelevant content (e.g. get ready with me makeup, outfit check, etc.) with tags that can be easily circulated on the feed, but share hidden messages on sensitive issues to spread awareness. These methods of creative subversion rely on direct and inverted usage of the existing framework that is the algorithm.
* Escape the Algorithm is also the title of a substack I deeply admire and frequent that touches on a lot of similar issues and ideas.
Collective movement for decentralized power
In 2021, there was a planned short squeeze of GameStop stock made successful by users of the subreddit r/wallstreetbets. This led to mass panic, specifically for big hedge fund investors. Some brokerages including Robinhood, an app-based brokerage platform, temporarily halted trades, leading to accusations of unscrupulous market manipulation. Big traders criticized the short squeeze, calling it “unnatural” and “dangerous”. But I cannot help but laugh thinking about how a random group of strangers online just decided to drive up the price of a meme stock that is the forgotten video game retailer. Technically, they abided by the basic trading rules as the brokerage platform had intended: find a stock of your liking and make a trade. Yet the outcome of such a collective movement turned out to be “distressing”.
The short squeeze was significant enough to shake up Wall Street. Disruptive enough for Robinhood to run out of collateral. Urgent enough that there was a Congress hearing (but what is it about the economy anyway?! Everything is fake and made up…!). Ultimately, rich people were angry because the market became volatile and unpredictable, no longer controlled and managed by a select few powerhouses, especially short sellers who were betting against the stock (boo-hoo to the short sellers who were most likely rich hedge funds and missed the mark!). Users’ collective movement had temporarily tilted the balance of power to the people. Albeit short-lived, this short squeeze is an indication of what can be made possible with collective action. Whether users were simply trolling, passionately trading, activating, or just in for the ride, I find this Gamestop saga as a form of digital disruption that is possible even within the guidelines of the platforms we use and love.
Creative Subversion as autonomous crafts
I believe that much of today’s creative resistance happens at individual levels that build personal and intentional spaces that honor values, notions, and people who are not visible, heard, or adopted by the mainstream. Personal production of digital spaces outside of dominant platforms focuses on web liberation and autonomy to resist the built infrastructure of today’s tech “solutions”.
These spaces can exist as a form of…
shared words and thoughts
… and more
for tech independence, for queerness, for disruption, for experiments and explorations, for poetics, for delight, for kindness, slowness, and love…
Again, this is a non-exhaustive list and simply one method of processing the relationship between the physical and digital, as well as its boundaries, and everything in between. I also want to acknowledge that there are a lot of gaps in my knowledge including the built infrastructure and ecologies, tech policies, systematic interventions, as well as how to include deeper intersections of queer/cyberfeminist theories within and outside of platforms. But I hope this offers a better perspective on how I think about subversion, namely creative subversion, to digital gentrification and the web as we know it. I don’t see subversion as an end game to the digital problems of today; again, everything is a process in a continuum. But sharing these words with you all, taking that silly extra step of personalizing my preferences on cookies, overhauling my website to be more sustainable (for like the seventh time), and documenting my previously failed hinge dates/gossip on Beli all feel like my small forms of resistance, if any.
Thanks for subverting with me.
— Eileen
♬ Note: A few weeks ago, I received a lovely, quite surprising comment from a friend. They told me that they have been following all of my substack posts with much delight! I don’t know why I was so surprised, but it came off as a surprise because I don’t receive much feedback or active discourse on my writing. It often feels like I am writing into the ether or to my future self to reread and critique. My substack dashboard gives me a pretty thorough breakdown, like who came from instagram or the app, etc., but these numbers don’t come very personal to me. I receive engagement from a very select few folks (shoutout to the 3 individuals <3), but this engagement feels much bigger to me than the numbers I see each month. So that being said… leave me a comment! Text me! Let us discourse! I want to know that you are here! I want to know what you think. It doesn’t have to be grand or meaningful. You are welcome to disagree with me. Just send me a heart that you read it and share it with a friend because that would mean the worlllldddd to meeeeee <3
finally catching up on my substack inbox and woww loved this<3 so beautifully crafted!
for tech independence, for queerness, for disruption, for experiments and explorations, for poetics, for delight, for kindness, slowness, and love…
love witnessing you build the digital world you hope for:)