Society Must Be Defended: Online Quality of Life, a Foucauldian Case Study of Gamergate

Abstract

The activity of real-life trolls and the psychological impact on their victims has been the subject matter of recent television drama, such as Channel 4’s Cyberbully (2015), and horror films with a supernatural twist, such as Unfriended (2015). However, this article explores a key transition in the construction of online social power, from its direct, brutal enforcement by the figure of the troll, to a particular example of the online, biopolitical regulation of quality of life using the device of Vivian James: the fictional character, mascot, and figurehead of the Gamergate protest movement