I gathered and examined material from these settings, which I chose on the basis of first purposeful and then theoretical sampling, selecting therefore cases that “can best contribute to the developing theory” and can be explored “along with the emerging theoretical concepts” (Moser and Korstjens, 2018: 11). Thus, the selection of settings was “based on the emerging findings to ensure adequate representation of theoretical concepts” (Moser and Korstjens, 2018: 10), that is to say, most principally the curatorial imperative in platform capitalism. In this sense, the selection of cases, settings, and material constitute what Sean Cubitt calls “anecdotal evidence”, according to which “the importance of the uniqueness and of working from the particular to gain understanding of broader phenomena is stressed” (Skjulstad, 2020: 185; Cubitt, 2020). In Chapter 4, I followed the Instagram accounts and online performances of agents whose activity brings into the fashion system avant-garde provocation, underground tropes, and social media driven imagery. Particularly, I followed the online activity of the brands Vetements and Balenciaga, principally in Instagram, and the online presentations of Demna Gvasalia, the co-founder of the former and the creative director of the latter. In Chapter 5, I followed several Airbnb Experiences and food sharing accounts in social media, particularly on Instagram and Facebook, to delve into the imagery and practices of these cultures; I also participated in an Airbnb Experience of online cooking by an Italian grandmother and observed the Facebook interactions of a restaurant in Thessaloniki, Greece that exemplifies the food curatorial ethos. In Chapter 6, I followed the online activity of life coaches and coaching schools, including their various Facebook and Instagram accounts, podcasts, online certificates in the educational platform Udemy, and YouTube videos; I participated in two online courses and got two certificates for becoming life coach myself. I manually coded these materials according to the theoretical considerations described above and the constellation of themes I wished to underline.
Lastly, while the book discusses cases from a limited amount of countries, including Greece, the United States, Russia, Italy, the UK, and France, it does not claim a regional focus, assuming that internet technologies spread and territorialize discourses and practices across disparate localities. Curation is what Ong and Collier call a “global form”, that is, a worldwide circulating logic coding “heterogeneous contexts and objects” yet whose movements are always limited “by specific technical infrastructures, administrative apparatuses, or value regimes” (2008: 11). Curation in platform economy is thus a phenomenon which develops in tandem with the techno-socialities of capitalism yet whose movement and adaptability by certain locales is contingent upon the availability of internet technologies (e.g., the digital divide), the access to metropolitan and urban imaginaries and familiarity with middleclass codes, among others. While I assume that there is no single center coordinating how these practices and discourses shape subjectivities or are adapted by users, I also wish to highlight the structural imperative of value production (economic, symbolic, social) organizing this process. Instead of a non-hierarchical ontology of networks and actants co-shaping each other in the information space, however, which is most often used in internet decentralization approaches, the book claims the tradition of critical theory which pays attention to hierarchies, power relations, and the structural efects of socio-economic organization (Malm, 2020). Speaking about the cultures of coolness, authenticity, and inspiration that platformized fashion, food, and coaching amplify, I will thus be prioritizing the structural imperatives of commodification, value, and the profit-motive in regulating online circulation.
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Homo Curatorius