The Sunday Interview: The Fascistization of the Digital
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Summary
Annika Brockschmidt talks with Simon Strick, a German cultural and media studies scholar, about his new book Faschisierung: Fluchtlinien des Digitalen (not yet translated into English). His argument is that the rise of the far right and the rise of digital media are not a coincidence. Both run on the same logic of reaction, outrage and attention, and each has shaped the other for roughly three decades.
Strick explains why he writes about "fascistization", a social process, rather than asking whether something "is fascism" by a historical checklist. He walks through how far-right internet material becomes mainstream politics:
The "Clown World" meme, which began on 4chan as a coded anti-queer, antisemitic signal and turned up in Chancellor Friedrich Merz's "circus" remark about rainbow flags.
The hacker "Weev", whose Amazon hack reclassifying LGBTQ books as pornography parallels Project 2025's proposals.
YouTube's outrage economy, from PewDiePie to Charlie Kirk's "debate me" format and the Trump administration's shock-content style.
They also discuss how mainstream media feed the cycle. Strick describes a division of labor in which the far right produces outrage and established outlets supply the attention. He uses the media's rise of Curtis Yarvin from unreadable blogger to "dark philosopher" as the example. The conversation ends as Annika puts one last question to him: is there an escape from fascistization?
Find Simon: Bluesky; guest professor in Vienna through December; several papers are open access, some in English. The book's publisher has a translation-rights page for any interested US publishers.
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Books mentioned:
📕 American Caesar: How Theocrats and Tech Lords Are Turning America into a Monarchy by Brad Onishi — out September 15: https://static.macmillan.com/static/essentials/american-caesar-9781250427922/
📗 Defying Tyrants: Following Jesus in a World of Christian Antichrists by Matthew D. Taylor — out October 6: https://www.broadleafbooks.com/store/product/9798341900370/Defying-Tyrants
Full tour dates: https://axismundinetwork.substack.com/p/the-american-caesar-book-tour
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