--- schema_version: "library-reader-v1" source_type: "original_book" title: "Curation in the Age of Platform Capitalism The Value of Selection, Narration, and Expertise in New Media Cultures" author: null edition: null publisher: null year: null isbn: "9781032023007" library_document_id: "d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406" source_sha256: "ff294dd3ca9b5a5b39076c941b15334b4f7db869335dfc45500c5e5500ae6681" pdf_physical_page_count: 177 pdf_physical_page_index_base: 0 range_start: 170 range_count: 7 html_url: "https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406?start=170&limit=10" markdown_url: "https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406.md?start=170&limit=10" previous_url: "https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406.md?start=160&limit=10" --- # Curation in the Age of Platform Capitalism The Value of Selection, Narration, and Expertise in New Media Cultures > 页码规则：PDF_PHYSICAL_PAGE_INDEX 是从 0 开始的权威文件物理页索引；PRINTED_PAGE 是页面中识别出的印刷页码，可能为空，二者不得混用。 ## PDF_PHYSICAL_PAGE_INDEX=170 | PRINTED_PAGE=160 The algorithmic spectacles and other curated content, this book argued, are further evocative of cultures in the anthropological sense of the word. The book navigated the values, emotions, socialities, and, generally, the cultural dimensions of platform curating by following it in a diverse range of sites. I discussed some of the behavioral, stylistic, and larger anthropological traits which platform curating mediates in public spheres, indicatively reflexivity (Chapter 3), coolness (Chapter 4), authenticity (Chapter 5), and inspiration (Chapter 6). To return to Adorno, to whom we referred to at the beginning of the book, it is not that these cultures did not exist before but that these cultures assume a widespread canonization with the advent of digital platforms. Coolness, as we saw, is a posture and stylistic ritual of banal luxury around the Balenciaga–Vetements–Demna complex. Before the emergence of platform connectivity, coolness was a posture principally associated with mass culture, such as jazz music or Levi jeans, and less to high fashion, as the latter would mostly privilege traits such as elegance, exclusivity, and sophistication. The mere availability of platform infrastructures mobilizes luxury brands to relate to forms of popular culture, such as coolness, as they need media engagements, followers, and visibility; luxury fashion pursues high and low cross-promotions to curate brand connectivities before a globa audience well versed in memes, films, art, music, and even cultural theory. I explored coolness, authenticity, and inspiration in respect to specific areas, namely fashion, food, and life coaching, however these cultures co-exist and overlap over the whole platform economy. For instance, together with its hyper-conceptual outlook, the banal luxury complex also displays some of the other cultural tropes I discussed, such as authenticity (e.g., a commitment to the values of the brand), reflexivity (e.g., the ethical brand positionings vis-à-vis fast fashion), and inspiration (e.g., Demna posing as visionary guru). Or food authenticity, which in curated gastronomy mobilizes figures like a local grandmother for gaining symbolic capital, can overlap with cultures of coolness (e.g., the counterintuitive selection of rare ingredients), reflexivity (e.g., the awareness that the food industry exploits animals and environment), and inspiration (e.g., the promotion of figure of the visionary chef). In this sense, the cultures this book discusses can be understood as varyingly present all over the spectrum of platform capitalism. 160 Cultures of Platform Capitalism ## PDF_PHYSICAL_PAGE_INDEX=171 | PRINTED_PAGE=161 Finally, the book aimed to contextualize the ascent of curation from the realm of art to a dominant cultural trope by pointing to the wider social logic it inhabits. Distributed curation, as this book argued, is not a market aberration vis-à-vis art curation but an expansion of the latter’s logic of value production. Businesses embrace this logic of value production in the realm of economic transactions for boosting market value, while for audiences and users it becomes an imperative pertaining to the question of what stories to tell about oneself to oneself and others. The term “imperative” here signifies a push in a direction, instead of a totalizing and overpowering regime. As with all social injunctions, the curatorial imperative is an efect of hegemonic economic, technological, and social forces. Via this imperative, platform capitalism shapes an anthropological condition across contemporary mediascapes and beyond, a homo curatorius whose embodiment of the “story you should be telling on your own” informs desirable horizons of class, status, and belonging. Its logic encompasses diverse spheres ranging from high-brow art and the fashion world to low-brow experience economies and economies of authenticity, from confidence cultures and pick-up artists to algorithmic rationalities. To put these diverse spheres under the umbrella of homo curatorius is to underscore how the questions of who to be, how to appear, and what to consume—the imperative to curate and be curated, the logic of guiding one’s practices, emotions, and life paths as if these will lead to a higher vision or concept of the self—cut through various spheres of contemporary platform cultures. It is a globalizing yet situated mandate where the artification of social and economic life—creativity, art, and design—meets the rationality of the market actor, rational consumer choice, and the spirit of entrepreneurialism. To curate and to be curated in the context of platform capitalism marks socializing processes of (especially) urban subjectivities surrounded by a seemingly abundant choice. If anything, it deepens the preoccupation with the self as the fundamental unit of analysis, which requires constant examination and reflection amid bewildering social complexity. Note 1 The Runpee app: https://runpee.com/ References Concluding Thoughts 161 ## PDF_PHYSICAL_PAGE_INDEX=172 | PRINTED_PAGE=162 162 Cultures of Platform Capitalism ## PDF_PHYSICAL_PAGE_INDEX=173 | PRINTED_PAGE=NOT_DETECTED Disclaimer This book is part of a project that has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No. 101004488. The information and views in this book are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Union. Neither the European Union institutions and bodies nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein. ## PDF_PHYSICAL_PAGE_INDEX=174 | PRINTED_PAGE=NOT_DETECTED Adorno, T. 7, 9, 160 Andrejevic, M. 5, 54, 56, 69 apparatus 10, 15, 17, 19, 52, 56, 59, 63, 67, 69, 78, 93, 130, 133, 135, 142–3, 150–1, 159 artification 6, 14–15, 28–9, 37, 79, 117, 121, 161 aspirational labor 61, 63, 64, 72, 151 authenticity 6–7, 14, 16, 18–20, 64, 68, 103–5, 107–11, 114–15, 118, 121, 136, 145, 160–1 Bhaskar, M. 17, 41–3 Bourdieu, P. 15, 67, 84–6, 105, 113 capitalism: communicative capitalism, 11, 51–6, 66, 69, 71, 91, 121; cool capitalism 79, 82; platform capitalism 5–8, 10, 12–13, 18, 20, 45, 52, 56–7, 59–60, 69–70, 75, 122, 130, 150, 158–9, 161 Carpentier, N. 34 coaching: coaching discourse 139, 144, 149; intimacy coaching 145; life coaching 5, 6, 10, 19–20, 29, 70, 127–8, 130–2, 138, 148, 150, 160 commercial platforms 9, 10 commodification of emotions 14 cosmopolitanism 28, 39, 42, 1 109, 111, 117–18; see also gastro-cosmopolitanism cultural exchange 15–16, 67 curation 3, 5–8, 10, 14, 16–20, 27, 29–30, 37, 40–3, 45, 49–52, 56–9, 68–70, 104–7, 135, 139, 150, 161 curated consumption 66–7, 69, 70, 158–9 curatorial imperative 8, 12–15, 18, 21, 44, 61, 64, 70, 122, 135, 139, 141, 144–5, 150, 159, 161 Currid-Halkett, E. 68, 78, 81–2 Dean, J. 11, 51–2, 54–6, 69–70, 121, 160 discourse 6, 18–19, 29, 33–41, 56, 66, 84–5, 91, 93, 109–10, 114, 129, 132, 139, 143–6, 149, 152, 159 Dumont, G. 12, 65, 83, 136 economy: gig economy 26, 52, 58, 61, 73, 74; Warhol Economy 20, 77, 80–4, 92, 96, 117 Foucault, M. 15, 98, 131 gastronomical imaginary 102, 104, 107, 109–11, 117–18, 120; see also imaginary gatekeeping 60 Gill, R. 131 Gilmore, J. H. 44, 69, 104–8, 110 governmentality: capitalist governmentality 129; governmentality school 131; neoliberal governmentality 15, 140 Graham, M. 11, 51, 61, 63 Heinich, N. 14, 28–9, 37 homo curatorius 1, 8, 21, 51, 161 Illouz, E. 6, 14, 93, 129, 133, 144–5, 148 imaginary 27–8, 40–1, 44, 56, 68–9, 102, 104, 107, 109, 110–11, 117–18, 120, 133, 158 Index ## PDF_PHYSICAL_PAGE_INDEX=175 | PRINTED_PAGE=165 intimacy: cold-intimacy 93, intimacy coaching 145–6 Langley, P. 5, 10, 49–50, 54, 57, 59–60, 64 Leyshon, A. 5, 10, 49–50, 54, 57, 59–60, 64 Lury, C. 16–17, 68, 134 Marwick, A. E. 12, 15, 136, 151 McGuigan, J. 79, 82 McRobbie, A. 15, 81, 131 market rationalization 14 micro-celebrities 12–13, 15, 51, 65, 127, 130, 133–4, 136, 138, 151, 159 Mylonas, Y. 117–18 neoliberal capitalism 6, 129 Nieborg, D. B. 9–13, 51, 58–9 Orgad, S. 131 O’Neill, R. 28, 39, 46, 148 O’ Reilly, K. 16 Pine, B. J. 44, 69, 104–8, 110 platform ecosystem 50 Poell, T. 9–13, 51, 58–9 populism 84, 87, 96 psy-disciplines 131 regime of truth 111, 113 relational labor 65, 72, 93, 136 Rose, N. 129, 131 Rosenbaum, S. 17, 27, 41, 44, 56 self-curation 15, 17, 19–20, 128, 138–9, 150; see also self self: the self 6, 8, 28, 29, 68, 90, 108–9, 120, 128–32, 139–40, 146, 150, 158–9, 161 Shapiro, R. N. 14, 28–9, 37 Skeggs, B. 15, 28, 66–8, 130 Srnicek, N. 5, 9, 11, 51, 53, 70 surveillance capitalism 11 symbolic rebellions 82 terra incognita 11 transgression 80, 82–3, 90, 96, 108, 130 Van Dijck, J. 9, 11–12, 50–1, 60, 70, 78, 159 Wayne, C. 146–9, 153 Williams, R. 13, 68, 110 Woodcock, J. 11, 51, 61, 63 woke-washing 67 Zubof, S. 11, 69 Index 165 ## PDF_PHYSICAL_PAGE_INDEX=176 | PRINTED_PAGE=NOT_DETECTED Taylor & Francis