1st Edition
Ghosts in the Dating App Machine Virality, AI, Data Colonialism
1. Introduction
Part 1: Summoning ghosts
2. Feeling ghosts
3. The ghost of coloniality
Part 2: OkCupid’s ghost
4. OkCupid’s entrepreneurs of intimacy
5. OkCupid’s algorithmic imaginary
Part 3: Virality machines
6. The swipe virus
7. Turing’s ghost
Part 4: Dating app ghosts
8. Uncanny swipe drive
9. Bored ghosts and anxious text games
Part 5: Ghosts in the virality machine
10. One-way funhouse mirrors
11. Conclusion
Appendix: methods
Index
Biography
Gregory Narr has researched and taught at CUNY, USA, and Harvard University, USA, including classes on online dating and social media.
"There is no more important space of freedom than love, and nowhere today do extractivism's hidden forces mine deeper than on dating apps. Greg Narr in this theoretically rich and sharply critical study of contemporary dating platforms adds an essential dimension to our understanding of data colonialism. Highly recommended."
-- Nick Couldry, Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
"Ghosts in the dating app machine is an indispensable read for the way it addresses the fundamental shift in the social and the transformation of the subject of desire brought with the ongoing development of AI. It will entice its readers with its provocative call for change and the evocative approach it develops to do so."
-- Patricia Ticineto Clough, Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies, Queens College, CUNY, USA
