Glossary of productive play

https://pad.xpub.nl/p/02022022

Abstracts

Addiction

Addiction is compulsive engagement in a rewarding experience despite serious repercussions. And it results from a confluence of biology, psychology, social environment and culture. Addiction can be physical, psychological, or both.

See also Productive play and Lootbox

Anchoring

The anchoring effect is a cognitive bias whereby an individual's decisions are influenced by a particular reference point or 'anchor'. Once the value of the anchor is set, subsequent arguments, estimates, etc. made by an individual may change from what they would have otherwise been without the anchor.
(i) An individual may be more likely to purchase a car if it is placed alongside a more expensive model (the anchor). Prices discussed in negotiations that are lower than the anchor may seem reasonable, perhaps even cheap to the buyer, even if said prices are still relatively higher than the actual market value of the car.
(ii) While estimating the orbit of Mars, one might start with the Earth's orbit (365 days) and then adjust upward until they reach a value that seems reasonable (usually less than 687 days, the correct answer). (Wikipedia)

Mentioned in [The Addictive Cost of Predatory Videogames Monetization (The Jimquisition) by Jim Sterling at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S-DGTBZU14]

In context trying to sell a user a lootbox for $50 and after a while telling them: "SUPERSALE NOW IT'S JUST $15", the result is that it doesn't really matter if the price is still super high, the user will still think that it's advantageous to buy it immediately (+ the discount won't last long).

In a sentence the anchoring effect is when individuals' decisions are influenced by a particular reference point or 'anchor'.

Ideology and anchoring point (the point de capiton [mentioned by Lacan] - French word to say anchoring point) How does an ideology maintain its consistency? What keeps of ideological field of meaning consistent? Any given ideological field is "quilted" by the point de capiton. A point de capiton unifies an ideological field and provides it with an identity. What is at issue in the conflict of ideologies is precisely the point de capiton. Signifiers such as "freedom", "democracy", "human rights," etc. are open-ended. Their meanings can slide about depending on the context of their use. For example, a right-wing interpretation of the word "freedom" might use it to designate the freedom to speculate on the market, whereas a left-wing interpretation of it might use it designate freedom from the inequalities of the market. The word "freedom" therefore does not mean the same thing in all possible worlds: what pins its meaning down is the point de capiton.

See also Dispositif (as apparatus) and Fast Thinking

Anxiety

(i) Anxiety is a feeling of fear, dread, and uneasiness. It might cause you to sweat, feel restless and tense, and have a rapid heartbeat. It can be a normal reaction to stress. For example, you might feel anxious when faced with a difficult problem at work, before taking a test, or before making an important decision. It can help you to cope. The anxiety may give you a boost of energy or help you focus. But for people with anxiety disorders, the fear is not temporary and can be overwhelming. Anxiety disorders are conditions in which you have anxiety that does not go away and can get worse over time. The symptoms can interfere with daily activities such as job performance, schoolwork, and relationships.
(ii) A feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome.
(iii) Strong desire or concern to do something or for something to happen.

Mentioned in [We Are All Very Anxious by weareplanc]

In contexts
"In contemporary capitalism, the dominant reactive affect is anxiety."
"Today’s public secret is that everyone is anxious. Anxiety has spread from its previous localised locations (such as sexuality) to the whole of the social field. All forms of intensity, self-expression, emotional connection, immediacy, and enjoyment are now laced with anxiety. It has become the linchpin of subordination."
"Public secrets are typically personalised. The problem is only visible at an individual, psychological level; the social causes of the problem are concealed."
"When discussed at all, they are understood as individual psychological problems, often blamed on faulty thought patterns or poor adaptation."
"The present dominant affect of anxiety is also known as precarity. Precarity is a type of insecurity which treats people as disposable so as to impose control. Precarity differs from misery in that the necessities of life are not simply absent. They are available, but withheld conditionally."
"Anxiety is reinforced by the fact that it is never clear what "the market" wants from us."

Period contemporary capitalism.

See also Precarity, Competition, Capitalism, Self-work and High-performance

Artificiality

(i) The quality of being made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally.
(ii) Insincerity or affectedness. [Oxford Languages]

| A Trajectory of Artificiality

Base & Superstructure

In Marxist theory, society consists of two parts: the base (or substructure) and superstructure.

"The base refers to the mode of production which includes the forces and relations of production (e.g. employer–employee work conditions, the technical division of labour, and property relations) into which people enter to produce the necessities and amenities of life.

The superstructure refers to society's other relationships and ideas not directly relating to production including its culture, institutions, political power structures, roles, rituals, religion, media, and state. The relation of the two parts is not strictly unidirectional. The superstructure can affect the base. However the influence of the base is predominant." [Wikipedia]

Mentioned in [The Ruling Class and the Ruling Ideas by Marx & Engels (1845)] in the introduction: "The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: I.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, consequently also controls the means of mental productions”

[Leftypedia]: https://leftypedia.org/wiki/Base_and_superstructure#cite_note-2

In context [Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory by Raymond Williams]: "Clearly what we are examining in the base is primary productive forces. Yet some very crucial distinctions have to be made here. It is true that in his analysis of capitalist production Marx considered ‘productive work’ in a very particular and specialized sense corresponding to that mode of production. There is a difficult passage in the Grundrisse (1857-61) [Marx's notebooks - published after his death in 1939-41] in which he argues that while the man who makes a piano is a productive worker, there is a real question whether the man who distributes the piano is also a productive worker; but he probably is, since he contributes to the realization of surplus value. Yet when it comes to the man who plays the piano, whether to himself or to others, there is no question: he is not a productive worker at all. So piano-maker is base, but pianist superstructure."

See also: Productivity, Capitalism and Ideology

Bric-à-brac

Bric-à-brac (French: [bʁi.ka.bʁak]) or bric-a-brac (from French), (i) first used in the Victorian era, (ii) refers to lesser objets d'art forming collections of curios, such as elaborately decorated teacups and small vases, compositions of feathers or wax flowers under glass domes, decorated eggshells, porcelain figurines, painted miniatures or photographs in stand-up frames, and so on.

In middle-class homes bric-à-brac was used as ornament on mantelpieces, tables, and shelves, or was displayed in curio cabinets: sometimes these cabinets have glass doors to display the items within while protecting them from dust. Today, bric-à-brac refers to a selection of items of modest value, often sold in street markets and charity shops, and may be more commonly known in colloquial English as "knick knacks". In Yiddish such items are known as tchotchkes.

Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman Jr., in The Decoration of Houses (1897), distinguished three gradations of quality in such "household ornaments": bric-à-brac, bibelots (trinkets) and objets d'art. (iii) [Wikipedia]

Period 19th & 20th Century

See also Anxiety

Click farm

A form of click fraud where a large group of low-paid workers are hired to click on paid advertising links for the click farmer. The workers click the links, surf the target website for a period of time, and possibly sign up for newsletters prior to clicking another link. It is extremely difficult for an automated filter to detect this simulated traffic as fake because the visitor behavior appears exactly the same as that of an actual legitimate visitor.

In context Click farms are used by all sorts of businesses, often to inflate their following or engagement, and they can be hired to do multiple actions such as:

Services offered by click farms can include:

• Social media followers and likes.
• Posting comments on websites or social media.
• Generating website traffic.
• Creating backlinks.
• Carrying out repetitive click based tasks.
• Channelling traffic to fraudulent sites to increase rankings, domain authority or to collect payouts on display ads.
• Sharing , often fake, news articles (troll factories).

With the majority of the world’s click farms based in countries with minimal employment and labour laws, their main legal issues are around employee rights, working conditions and wages.

In a sentence as online engagement became currency, click farms exploit workers in order to mass produce fraudulent user interactions.

Mentioned by Lee Munson

See also Term

Collective sensitivity (actually: collective sensibility)

Sensitivity (noun) /sɛnsɪˈtɪvɪti/
1. The quality or condition of being sensitive.
2. Feelings liable to be offended or hurt; sensibilities.

Sensitive /ˈsɛnsɪtɪv/
1. Quick to detect or respond to slight changes, signals, or influences.
2. Having or displaying a quick and delicate appreciation of others' feelings.

Sensibility /ˌsɛnsɪˈbɪlɪti/
1. The quality of being able to appreciate and respond to complex emotional or aesthetic influences; sensitivity.
2. Sensitivity to sensory stimuli.

In context Collective sensibility is an attempt to create an artificial standard of the senses in order for a dominant culture to control a population and its possible division. To comply to the collective sensibility is to compromise on one's individual sensibility in order for this individual to fit in a culture.

• What one senses vs what one should sense
• Standardisation of the senses
• Artificial standard
• Shared apprehension of a surrounding
• Desensitisation of the individual
• Norm for sensibility
• Numbness
• Establishing norms
• Refusal to be conscious of one's feeling
• Comfort

"Without a collective sensibility, these crowds would (and still often did) form their own modes of culture based in older forms of collectivity and knowledge that showed no respect for the norms of the factory or the city.", "sense of shared culture".

In use
(i) "To achieve collaborative networks, we need leaders and people who have a collective sensibility. Starting by being mature and predictable, people must learn to share knowledge, make and keep their commitments, be civil and generous, and to step up and be accountable to others and the business."
(ii) "both personal and collective sensibility may share a cultural watershed, but are seen to evolve independently."
(iii) "More generally, the sensitivity identifies pivotal components that precisely determine collective outcomes generated by a complex network of interactions."
(iv) "Group social sensitivity, hence, is expected to be conducive for high levels of performance across multiple tasks..."

References
(i) https://healthycompanies.com/developing-a-collective-sensibility/
(ii) https://thekarachicollective.com/sensibility-the-dna-of-creativity-dictionaries/
(iii) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32486948/
(iv) https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00676/full

Communism

(i) Ideology: "Communism or (radical) socialism is the belief that the capitalist mode of production should be abolished in favor for a classless, moneyless, stateless society." (Leftypedia)

(ii) Society: Communism, also referred to as socialism, is the society that Marxism predicts will succeed capitalism. Communism is based on common ownership of the means of production, cooperative labour, and freely associated producers (or, the free association of equal producers) that administer production on the basis of a social or common plan. The social character of labour, unlike in capitalism (see Law of value), is directly expressed (directly or immediately social labour) via the association of producers. Consequently, communism is a society without commodity production, commodity exchange (and markets) and therefore without a universal equivalent (i.e. money). Value, the value-form, and the law of value have therefore also disappeared. [1] The superstructure arising from this base or economic structure would be based on collective administration of free and social individuals. communism is therefore a stateless society.

Mentioned in [The Communist Manifesto (1848) by Marx & Engels]

From leftypedia "The superstructure arising from this base or economic structure would be based on collective administration of free and social individuals. communism is therefore a stateless society."

In a sentence "A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of communism" (Marx & Engels)

In context (1840s): "All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise [the spectre of communism]: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies." (Marx & Engels)

Period 1848 - Present

Counterculture

(i) "A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores. A countercultural movement expresses the ethos and aspirations of a specific population during a well-defined era." [Wikipedia]
(ii) Countercultures often are of dissenting character in relation to the established superstructure/ruling ideologies. They become part of the popular culture or fully integrated to culture after revolutionary actions or activist actions, consistent and confident defiance of established "rules". Counter culture can also purposefully present themselves as disturbances of defiance of any current stream (may they cross as certain times) as way to protest, as emancipation or contestation.

In context (a)
(i) One famous counterculture is the hippy movement from the 60s-70s which was demonstrated by very defying aesthetically "divergent" hair features, sexual liberation, eye-catching fashion and uprisal against the dominant political/social structures.
(ii) Nowadays the queer community holds some of the keys to one of the main counterculture stream, where gender defaults are refuted, social norms re-evaluated and contested, communal cohesion starts with individual expression and affirmation, diversity first and foremost. Feminism has shared platforms between counter- and mainstream culture, where different aspects have been shared, when the queer community has always mainly evolved on the side-lines, it is now coming more and more in the main cultural streams.
(iii) Mainstream culture uses countercultures as fashionable ideologies on and off, but counterculture also makes use of mainstream society to vehiculate ideologies (pop culture, artists like Lady Gaga, channels counter-communities within mainstream medias).
“Born this way” has been the rallying cry of the mainstream gay rights movement [[1]]

In context (b)
See Fred Turner's From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (2008), which charts how the [(left)Libertarian] values of the US 1960s counterculture (hippy communes, experiments with LSD &c) are taken up by the big tec companies ; so a lot of the 'freedom' rhetoric on the internet in the 2000s is related to the US 60s counterculture movement. The model for the network is provided by The. Whole Earth Catalog (1968) which advanced freedom via "access to tools"

In a sentence Counterculture stands in opposition to the mainstream society until it gets incorporated within the mainstream society, mostly arises from social/political divergences/conflicts/defiance.

Period originated in the 1960s, to this day.

See also Counterhegemony and Mainstream

Counterhegemony

Counter-hegemony refers to attempts to critique or dismantle hegemonic power. In other words, it is a confrontation and/or opposition to existing status quo and its legitimacy in politics, but can also be observed in various other spheres of life, such as history, media, music, etc. (wiki)
"Counterhegemony is a notion developed by Antonio Gramsci (1995) to define the way people develop ideas and discourse to challenge dominant assumptions, beliefs and established patterns of behavior"

Mentioned in [Gramsci , Hall (encoding-decoding), Hebdidge (Subculture, the Meaning of Style)]

In contextIt could be a trade union library or a community-based orchestra (see The Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra)

Period1920s-2020s

See also Counterculture, Hegemony and Mainstream

Democracy

(i)"Democracy (Greek: δημοκρατία, dēmokratiā, from dēmos 'people' and kratos 'rule') is a form of government in which the people govern themselves, usually by electing bodies of representatives.[1] Western capitalist society is dominated by liberal democracies, which revolutionary socialists criticise as legitimising organs of a dictatorship of the capitalist class, and obstacles against the establishment of meaningful democracy of the masses." [Leftypedia]
(ii) "Democracy (Greek: δημοκρατία, dēmokratiā, from dēmos 'people' and kratos 'rule'[1]) is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choose governing officials to do so ("representative democracy"). Who is considered part of "the people" and how authority is shared among or delegated by the people has changed over time and at different rates in different countries, but over time more and more of a democratic country's inhabitants have generally been included. Cornerstones of democracy include freedom of assembly, association and speech, inclusiveness and equality, citizenship, consent of the governed, voting rights, freedom from unwarranted governmental deprivation of the right to life and liberty, and minority rights.
The notion of democracy has evolved over time considerably. The original form of democracy was a direct democracy. The most common form of democracy today is a representative democracy, where the people elect government officials to govern on their behalf such as in a parliamentary or presidential democracy.[2]" [Wikipedia]

Mentioned in [Wikipedia] "The term democracy first appeared in ancient Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens during classical antiquity. The word comes from dêmos '(common) people' and krátos 'force/might'. Under Cleisthenes, what is generally held as the first example of a type of democracy in 508–507 BC was established in Athens. Cleisthenes is referred to as "the father of Athenian democracy".

In context... Do we behave democratically in our day-to-day life?

In a sentence Democracy (Greek: δημοκρατία, dēmokratiā, from dēmos 'people' and kratos 'rule')

See also Ideology and Capitalism

Dispositif

"Dispositif or dispositive is a term used by the French intellectual Michel Foucault, generally to refer to the various institutional, physical, and administrative mechanisms and knowledge structures which enhance and maintain the exercise of power within the social body. The links between these elements are said to be heterogeneous since knowledge, practices, techniques, and institutions are established and reestablished in every age. It is through these links that power relations are structured." [Wikipedia]

Mentioned in
(i) [The Confession of the Flesh (1977) Foucault] "What I'm trying to pick out with this term is, firstly, a thoroughly heterogeneous ensemble consisting of discourses, institutions, architectural forms, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral and philanthropic propositions–in short, the said as much as the unsaid. Such are the elements of the apparatus. The apparatus itself is the system of relations that can be established between these elements."

An apparatus or a distribution of power which is non-hierarchical (where power does not come from the top down but is distributed, like an apparatus with different elements working together.) This differs from the base-superstructure model.

(ii) [Fuchs, Gamification as twenty-first century ideology]; The dispositif that supports gamification is a heterogenous ensemble in Foucault’s understanding of the apparatus because it contains multiple fields of application.." See also Foucault in The Confession of the Flesh (1977) "

See also Base and Superstructure, Gamification and Ideology

Enlightment

"The Age of Enlightenment (also known as the Age of Reason or simply the Enlightenment) was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on the value of human happiness, the pursuit of knowledge obtained by means of reason and the evidence of the senses, and ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state." [Wikipedia]

Mentioned by

(i) Kant (1724-1804) : What is Enlightenment? "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance." [For Kant enlightenment is a condition of self-knowledge/ self-understanding, which was emblematic of his era (The Enlightenment or Age of Reason)]
(ii) Michel Foucault : What is Enlightenment? (1984) "What, then, is this event that is called the Aufklärung [enlightenment] and that has determined, at least in part, what we are, what we think, and what we do today ?" For Foucault the enlightenment represents a moment when people were able to reflect on the condition of their own thought.

Entertainment

Entertainment (i) is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousands of years specifically for the purpose of keeping an audience's attention. [Wiki]

(ii) is the prolongation of work under late capitalism

Mentioned in (i) [Video Games as Meaningful Entertainment Experiences" by Mary Beth Oliver, Nicholas David Bowman, Julia K. Woolley, Ryan Rogers, Brett I. Sherrick and Mun-Young Chung]

(ii) [Enlightenment as mass deception" by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer]

In context Movies are the easiest and most common form of entertainment that most people in the world consume. Other forms of entertainment are: Books, video games, tv shows, sporting events, circuses, comedy events, music festivals, etc.

In a sentence Entertainment consists of performances of plays and films, and activities such as reading and watching television, that give people pleasure.

False Consciousness

"False consciousness is a term used by some to describe ways in which material, ideological, and institutional processes are said to mislead members of the proletariat and other class actors within capitalist societies, concealing the exploitation intrinsic to the social relations between classes." [Wikipedia]

Mentioned in [ Gamification as twenty-first-century ideology, Mathias Fuchs ] (a)"When the evangelists of gamification tell us that work must be play, that our personalities will be playful, that the whole economy is a game, and that each and every activity from cradle to grave can be turned into a game, we encounter false consciousness that is socially necessary." (b) "This state of alienation has also been referred to as ‘false consciousness’. In the closing chapter of Alfred Sohn-Rethel’s Intellectual and Manual Labour (1978: 196), the author invokes the concept of ‘necessary false consciousness’. This is a type of false consciousness that is not just faulty consciousness; necessary false consciousness is rather a type of false consciousness that is logically correct. However cruel, meaningless or destructive it might seem, it is necessary for the system in which we are working to keep working until we die so that we will shop until we drop."

From Leftypedia Consciousness/ Class consciousness, "A materialist understanding of class is known by Marxists as 'class consciousness'. This understanding is the knowledge of one's own position in the economic hierarchy, and the acceptance of the interests which therefore benefit the individual. The term is most often used to describe the working class, or elements of it, becoming aware of their own exploitation and working to oppose it in unity with their fellow workers, but it can also be used to describe the self-awareness of the bourgeoisie of their superior position in society and their efforts to maintain the present hierarchy. It is often contrasted with its inverse, 'false consciousness', which describes the lack of this knowledge causing the worker to labour contrary to his own interests as a member of the oppressed class (for instance through vocal support of the ruling classes and existing power structures)."

In context [Gamification as twenty-first-century ideology, Mathias Fuchs] "Gamification propaganda in the style of ‘work is play’, ‘work can be play’ or ‘work harder, play harder’ are suggesting that work can be contained within the ‘sphere of play’ (Huizinga [1938] 1949). Such statements and consequently the whole concept of gamification are ideological as they express false consciousness of the nature of work and play (see, e.g., the magazine covers in Figure 3, designed by Anthony Burrill 2008). "

In a sentence False consciousness is the state in which one feels like they are given full agency of their own choices/actions when in fact they are subject to a certain ideology that has come to seem so self-speaking they wouldn't question it

In a question Is false consciousness a function of ideology?

Period origin in History and Class Consciousness (1923) by the Hungarian philosopher and literary critic György Lukács - To this day

See also Gamification, Capitalism, Alienation and Play

Fan culture/fandom

A fandom is a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest. Fans typically are interested in even minor details of the objects of their fandom and spend a significant portion of their time and energy involved with their interest, often as a part of a social network with particular practices, differentiating fandom-affiliated people from those with only a casual interest. [Wikipedia]

The history of the word “fandom” starts with a very old word — “fanatic.” “Fanatic” arose out of a Latin word, “fānāticus,” which, in turn, came from the word “fanum,” meaning “temple” or “shrine". In the late 19th-century, the word "fan" started to be used to describe an enthousiast of a certain sports team.

Mentioned in (i) ["On productivity and game fandom" by Hanna Wirman]
(ii) [“Textual Poachers: Television Fan & Participatory Culture” by Henry Jenkins]

In context Members of a fandom associate with one another and build a community around their fan interest (e.g.: celebrities, hobbies, genres, fashion, ...). A fan culture often includes fan activities such as conventions, writing fan fictions, participating in fan online forums and discussions, purchasing merchandise and collector items, etc. Some of the largest fandoms are the Harry Potter fandom, Anime fandom and the BTS army (BTS is a K-Pop group).

In a sentence A fandom is a subgroup of fans that share a common interest.

Free-To-Play

"Free to play (F2P or FtP) refers to a business model for online games in which the game designers do not charge the user or player in order to join the game. Instead, they hope to bring in revenue from advertisements or in-game sales, such as payment for upgrades, special abilities, special items, and expansion packs.[...]Free to play games center around gamers' willingness to purchase items or pay for access to new content once they have tried out the game and become familiar with its mechanics." Techopedia Free-to-play's model is sometimes derisively referred to as free-to-start due to not being entirely free. There are several kinds of free-to-play business models. The most common is based on the freemium software model, in which users are granted access to a fully functional game but are incentivised to pay microtransactions to access additional content. Sometimes the content is entirely blocked without payment; other times it requires immense time 'unlocking' it for non-paying players, and paying the fee speeds the unlocking process. Another method of generating revenue is to integrate advertisements into the game. The model was first popularly used in early massively multiplayer online games targeted towards casual gamers, before finding wider adoption among games released by major video game publishers to combat video game piracy. [Wikipedia]

Mentioned by [Matt Mihaly] who created the first known business model of exchanging virtual items for money in an online game, in 1997; The model was later realised by Nexon in South Korea to a degree first catching more major media attention at the time. The first Nexon game to use it, QuizQuiz, was released in October 1999. Its creator Lee Seungchan would go on to create MapleStory.

Period contemporary (after late 1990s). The model started in the late 1990s and early 2000s, in some highly successful MMOs; targeted children and casual gamers.

In a sentence Free-to-play games are easy to access for wider audiences because the user doesn't need to pay in order to play the game. Those games are monetised later either by using their user data (advertisements + get funding for critical user mass) or by adding payable content inside the game. Because of being so accessible, they became quite popular and attracted high numbers of players.

Fun

Definition
Fun is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "Light-hearted pleasure, enjoyment, or amusement; boisterous joviality or merrymaking; entertainment".
According to Johan Huizinga, fun is "an absolutely primary category of life, familiar to everybody at a glance right down to the animal level."[11] Psychological studies reveal both the importance of fun and its effect on the perception of time, which is sometimes said to be shortened when one is having fun. As the adage states: "Time flies when you're having fun".
With the emergence of entertainment industry, fun is sold as a consumer product in the form of games, novelties, television, toys and other amusements. Marxist sociologists such as the Frankfurt School criticise mass-manufactured fun as too calculated and empty to be fully satisfying. [Wikipedia]

World War 2 era employment poster about the importance of fun

Mentioned by
Johan Huizinga | Frankfurt school(ex. Max Horkheimer/Theodor W. Adorno / Erich Fromm/Herbert Marcuse)

In context

   [In ev’ry job that must be done 
   There is an element of fun 
   You find the fun, and snap! 
   The job’s a game!
   From Mary Poppins, 1964]

"Gamification can nowadays be spotted almost everywhere: When we look at theatre theory, we will find ‘game theatre’ (Rakow 2013: n.p.); when we look at religious blogs, we’ll find ‘gamifying religion’ (Toler 2013: n.p.); when we look at the information from health services, we’ll find ‘fun ways to cure cancer’ (Scott 2013: n.p.) or ‘dice game against swine flu’ (Marsh and Boffey 2009: n.p.); and when we investigate collective water management, we’ll find ‘games to save water’ (Meinzen-Dick 2013: n.p.)."[From Gamification as 21stcentury ideology by Mathias Fuchs]

"Ultimately, the attempt to harmonize play and labour, however, is ideology. Gamification that has at its core the suggestion that work can be fun is therefore caught in the trap of a self-contained ideological system that is in sync with the development of the relations of production of our society. And that is as glamorous and successful as it is untrue because of its nature as necessary false consciousness."[From Gamification as 21st century ideology by Mathias Fuchs]

"We question the underlying assumptions about games and play, which rely on highly procedural and simplified practice, that underpin gamification’s usefulness. As a process, gamification relies on two key additions to the Taylorist model: first, that work can be made more productive by duplicating things that are fun in non-leisure circumstances, and second, that play can be made productive by the compulsive and compulsory generation of data that can be fed back into production processes. In both cases, the act of ‘play’ is only superficially about fun. Instead, its real focus is the generation of data and the norming of leisure time as something that should be productive. In the first case, the hope is that the gamified training devices, marketing materials and so on will mimic fun well enough that workers will want to participate, perhaps even when they are off the clock. Coldstone Creamery’s various gamification experiments serve as excellent examples of this.

As every student knows, things that attempt to make learning fun do not always succeed. In these cases, gamification results in something like a photocopy of fun and games, and just as with photocopies, each version loses a little detail. More problematic for workers, of course, is the question of what happens when gamified processes succeed and actually result in something so fun that work can creep into leisure time. In such moments, unless workers are compensated for the time spent, companies experience what is essentially a free boost to production. The more successfully fun the game, the larger the uncompensated productive boost." [from Taylorism 2.0]

See also Entertainment

Gamification

Definition (1) the application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service. (2): "the process of adding games or gamelike elements to something (such as a task) so as to encourage participation" (Websters Dictionary)

Who said it Mentioned in [ Fuchs, Gamification as twenty-first century ideology ], [ Jennifer Dewinter, Katy A Kocurek, Randall Nichols, Gamification as twenty-firstcentury ideology]

In context [ Gamification as the process of turning extra-ludic activities into play. I argue that gamification might be seen as a form of ideology and therefore a mechanism of the dominant class to set agenda and to legitimize actions taken by this very class or group. [Gamification is based on similar principles of measurement and observation with a focus on both the reorganization of work and leisure

In a sentence to put it simply, a way to make any other thing look like a game, therefore it seems like a fun/desirable activity instead of an imposition/exploitation/slavery. Strategy used to motivate the user/employee/citizen in order to get more/better results/data.

Period 2003 - now

See also False Consciousness and Alienation and Capitalism and Ideology and IKEA effect and Productive Play and False Consciousness and Anchoring and Entertainment

Gift

Definition
(noun) 1. a thing given willingly to someone without payment; a present.
(noun) 2. a natural ability or talent.
(verb) give (something) as a gift, especially formally or as a donation or bequest.
[oxford languages]

A gift or a present is an item given to someone without the expectation of payment or anything in return. An item is not a gift if that item is already owned by the one to whom it is given. Although gift-giving might involve an expectation of reciprocity, a gift is meant to be free. In many countries, the act of mutually exchanging money, goods, etc. may sustain social relations and contribute to social cohesion. Economists have elaborated the economics of gift-giving into the notion of a gift economy. By extension, the term gift can refer to any item or act of service that makes the other happier or less sad, especially as a favor, including forgiveness and kindness. Gifts are also first and foremost presented on occasions such as birthdays and holidays. [Wikipedia]

Mentioned by
Marcel Mausse | George Bataille |

In Context
"Marcel Mauss ([1923/1924] 1954) believes that a fundamental quality of human interaction must exist outside the rationality of exchange and of monetary interest. Based on ethnological research, he proposed the notion of the gift as an alternative to the rationalist calculation of capitalist exchange ([1923/1924] 1954). Giving away without any expectation for payback allows us to act in a way that is non-alienated and differs considerably from the exchange of commodities with the aim of profit making. George Bataille’s (1975) perspective on economic structure used the concept of the gift developed by Mauss in order to support his affirmation of the possibility of human sovereignty within economic systems. For Bataille, play was one of the conceivable frameworks that foster a type of sacrifice that resembles a gift. (...)

A gamified work process, a gamified consumer service, or a gamified learning experience will always try to keep the customer accumulating points, badges or money. In regard to the gifts offered by gamification apps, there is also a substantial difference to freely giving away (in the sense of Mauss and Bataille) on one hand and the pointsification-oriented incentives on the other hand. Bonuses and badges handed out to increase customer loyalty are the opposite of generous gifts. If gifts, as they are given in environments like Farmville (Zynga 2009), SuperBetter (McGonigal 2012c) or the Starbucks App (Starbucks Coffee Company 2014), only serve to increase the profits of some and the exploitation of others, then they are far from sovereign praxis. (...)

A gift in a gamification context is never ‘le don’ as Mauss conceived it ([1923/1924] 1954). The gamified Homo Ludens is just an advancement of the homo economicus. The former might have a smile on his face, but the smile is a sarcastic one. Mauss’ gift and even more so Bataille’s excessive gift held a promise for the possibility to escape the cage of traditional economic reasoning. Bataille was hoping for a Copernican revolution that turns an economy of scarcity into one of excess: ‘[c]hanging from the perspectives of restrictive economy to those of general economy actually accomplishes a Copernican transformation: a reversal of thinking – and of ethics’ (1991: 25). Bataille identifies the gift, excessive play and sexuality as areas where his ‘general economy’ can already be observed nowadays. The French philosopher thinks of playing games in the wider sense as a nucleus of emancipation." [from Gamification as 21st century ideology by Mathias Fuchs]

See also Gift Economy | Reciprocity

Gift Economy

Definition
A gift economy or gift culture is a mode of exchange where valuables are not sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. Social norms and customs govern giving a gift in a gift culture, gifts are not given in an explicit exchange of goods or services for money, or some other commodity or service. This contrasts with a barter economy or a market economy, where goods and services are primarily explicitly exchanged for value received.

According to anthropologists Maurice Bloch and Jonathan Parry, it is the unsettled relationship between market and non-market exchange that attracts the most attention. Some authors argue that gift economies build community, while markets harm community relationships.
[Wikipedia]

Mentioned by

In Context

See also Gift | Reciprocity

Hook Model / Hook - Habit - Hobby

It's a business model that is used also in videogames to ensure that microtransactions are turned from an occasional event into a rooted habit for gamers. This model functions following different strategies to ensure continuous profiting, like fast thinking processes, gatchas (collectible items), subscriptions, etc.

At its simplest form, the hook model describes how businesses can fundamentally change behaviour within their users, and create day-to-day habits around their products. The heart of the principle is that businesses should always seek to connect a user’s problem to your solution with enough frequency to make it a habit. Through consecutive hook cycles, products reach their ultimate goal of unprompted user engagement, bringing users back repeatedly, without depending on costly advertising or aggressive messaging. In the context of commodification of games, the habit becomes a real hobby for the gamer that would voluntary invest unlimited resources (⌚ + 💸💸) and energies in gaming.

The initial hook is fundamental to build an habit, it is an ice-breaker, something that presents itself as an immediately useful and convenient achievement. It's followed by subsequent phases in a cycle:

1. Trigger

it can be external like a notification or internal like an association made in the user's memory (like emotions) and it reminds or suggests you to do something.

2. Action

is the simplest behaviour provoked by the trigger in anticipation of a reward, or in other words the simplest action that a person can do towards the satisfaction of a little desire.

3. Variable reward

a little extra item, often from a lottery or randomly generated, that rewards the action and boosters motivation.

4. Investment

This the phase in which users are asked to do a bit of work, which turns out in the end to be unpaid labour. Investments are about the anticipation of longer-tern rewards, not immediate gratification. The more users invest time and effort into a product or service, the more they value it.

IKEA effect

The IKEA effect is a cognitive bias in which consumers place a disproportionately high value on products they partially created. The name refers to Swedish manufacturer and furniture retailer IKEA, which sells many items of furniture that require assembly. [Wiki]

Who said it Michael I. Norton, Daniel Mochon, Dan Ariely

Mentioned in "The 'IKEA Effect': When Labor Leads to Love" by Michael I. Norton, Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely [2]

In context IKEA customers can build their own furniture. People can choose colours to customize their own shoes online. Children can design their own cuddly toy. Customers can order their own creations at chocolate manufacturers.

In a sentence The IKEA effect describes how people tend to value an object more if they make (or assemble) it themselves.

Period 2011 - aprox

Ideology

Definition 1) a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy. "the ideology of democracy" 2) a system of ideas which seem self evident and 'natural' to those that hold them. 3) the science of ideas; the study of their origin and nature.

Context [ How does gamification express ideology? Note: "Hegemony and Ideology are two concepts that come in social sciences between which a key difference can be identified. In a general sense, hegemony is the dominance of one group or state over another. On the other hand, ideology is a system of ideas forming the basis of an economic or political theory." Also in context see:THE CALIFORNIAN IDEOLOGY By Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron (1995):"There is an emerging global orthodoxy concerning the relation between society, technology and politics. We have called this orthodoxy `the Californian Ideology' "

Who said it Mentioned in Marx, Gramsci, Barthes , Hall, Hebdidge, Williams

Mentioned in

In a sentence Barthes: "ideology is disguised in plain sight"

See also

Labour

Labour means physical or mental effort or in other words: Work.

Mentioned in: "Well played" by Vicky Osterweil

work-and-labour

Lootbox

Definition

Mentioned by

In Context

In One Sentence

See Also

Magic Circle

Definition
(virtual worlds) In games and digital media, the "magic circle" is the space in which the normal rules and reality of the world are suspended and replaced by the artificial reality of a game world.

Mentioned by
Johan Huizinga |

In Context

In One Sentence
In games and digital media, the "magic circle" is the space in which the normal rules and reality of the world are suspended and replaced by the artificial reality of a game world.

See Also

Mass Culture

Definition:
"Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of the practices, beliefs, and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a society at a given point in time. Popular culture also encompasses the activities and feelings produced as a result of interaction with these dominant objects. The primary driving force behind popular culture is mass appeal, and it is produced by what cultural analyst Theodor Adorno refers to as the "culture industry".wikipedia

Who said it:
Mentioned in Adorno, Hebdidge

See also:
(by contrast) sub culture | pop culture / mainstream / mass media / PAP

Mainstream

The mainstream is the prevalent current thought that is widespread. It includes all popular culture and media culture, typically disseminated by mass media. This word is sometimes used in a pejorative sense by subcultures who view ostensibly mainstream culture as not only exclusive but artistically and aesthetically inferior. It is to be distinguished from subcultures and countercultures, and at the opposite extreme are cult followings and fringe theories. The labels "mainstream media" and "mass media" are generally applied to print publications (such as newspapers and magazines), radio formats, and television stations that contain the highest audience or have the broadest appeal. [Wiki]

Mentioned in: "Well played" by Vicky Osterweil

In context: Everything that is seen as normal, that is familiar to the masses and available to the general public is mainstream. An example for mainstream cinema are Hollywood movies.

In a sentence: Media, people, activities, products and ideas that are part of the mainstream are regarded as the most typical, normal, and conventional because they belong to the same group or system as most others of their kind.

Microtransactions

Definition:
"A microtransaction is a business model where users can purchase virtual items for small amounts of money. Microtransactions often appear in free-to-play games, meaning there is no cost to download the game, just a cost to buy the online virtual products." Investopedia

Who said it:
Mentioned in ["Gamification as twenty-first-century ideology" by M. Fuchs; Hegel,

see also:
lootbox, gambling, monetization

Monetization

Definition
noun
Monetization (also spelled monetisation) is, broadly speaking, the process of converting something into money. Gaming monetization / video games monetization is the type of process that a video game publisher can use to generate revenue from a video game product. The methods of monetization may vary between games, especially when they come from different genres or platforms, but they all serve the same purpose to return money to the game developers, copyright owners, and other stakeholders. As the monetization methods continue to diversify, they also affect the game design in a way that sometimes leads to criticism.
Who said it
Creator Matt Mihaly sought other ways to earn revenue, and after offering a few high-quality in-game items for real-world money at an auction, realized a way to make additional revenue. Mihaly programmed into Achaea what is believed to be the first microtransaction, "dual currency" system, where two pools of in-game currency are available, those that are earned in-game, and those that are converted from real-world purchases into the premium currency, which was the only currency that could be used to purchase "virtual goods" in the game.
In the first decade of the century, the game monetization was affected by the booming of the e-commerce, as well as hardware, software and other information technology developments. All kinds of online games and multiplayer games were connected through the faster Internet. The craze of MMORPG by made the subscription model a profitable way to support the game developers. Many browser games became free to play in order to attract more visits. At the early age of smartphones, mobile games were paid to download because there was usually no interface for a smartphone to install a physical copy.
Period: 1997+, boom in 2000s
In context
"Video games as a consumer product have changed significantly with the advent of in-game purchasing systems (e.g., microtransactions, ‘loot boxes’)... The analysis revealed that some in-game purchasing systems could be characterized as unfair or exploitative. These systems describe tactics that capitalize on informational advantages (e.g., behavioral tracking) and data manipulation (e.g., price manipulation) to optimize offers to incentivize continuous spending, while offering limited or no guarantees or protections (e.g., refund entitlement), with the potential to exploit vulnerable players (e.g., adolescents, problematic gamers). These findings are critically discussed in relation to behavioral economics, addiction psychology, and the clinical conceptualization of gaming disorder. Appropriate policy and consumer protection measures, psychologically informed interventions, and ethical game design guidelines are needed in order to protect the interests and wellbeing of consumers." - Unfair play? Video games as exploitative monetized services: An examination of game patents from a consumer protection perspective, Daniel L. Kinga,b, Paul H. Delfabbroa, Sally M. Gainsburyc, Michael Dreierd, Nancy Greere, Joël Billieuxf
See also: microtransaction / free-to-play / loot box

PAP

Definition If you describe something such as information, writing, or entertainment as pap, you mean that you consider it to be of no worth, value, or serious interest. (a)Bland soft or semi-liquid food such as that suitable for babies or invalids. ("a trayful of tasteless pap"). (b)Worthless or trivial reading matter or entertainment. ("limitless channels serving up an undemanding diet of pap"). (c)Pap culture is in a certain way trash culture, the sewer of popular culture, yet, the most consumed and produced. (d)Scottish and Northern England dialect. a nipple or teat.

Who said it Mentioned in [Cultural Resistance Reader, Stephen Duncombe] STUART HALL,"NOTES ON DECONSTRUCTING 'THE POPULAR"', "Yesterday's rebellious subculture is today's commercial pap and today's pap can become the basis for tomorrow's culture of resistance (cf. Cowley,Frank, and Hebdige)."

See also Counterculture

Play

Definition
(verb) When you play, especially as a child, you spend time doing an enjoyable and/or entertaining activity [Cambridge Dictionary]

Play is a range of intrinsically motivated activities done for recreational pleasure and enjoyment. Play is commonly associated with children and juvenile-level activities, but play occurs at any life stage, and among other higher-functioning animals as well, most notably mammals and birds.[Wikipedia]

In context
["Play is a free activity standing quite consciously outside "ordi-nary"life as being "not serious,"but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner. It promotes the formation of social groupings, which tend to surround themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference from the common world by disguise or other means." from Homo Ludens by Johann Huizinga]

["Further, play becomes subservient to work; the very act of codifying play into observable metrics ensures that play loses the power of intrinsic motivation and imagination. The hierarchy of business training games reads thusly: play belongs to games, games belong to algorithms and algorithms represent the intellectual and manual labour processes of high- stakes economics. (...) Play requires imagination and rules. But differently from games, within the rules of play the imagination and rules are plastic, changing to situational exigencies that are defined by actors, culture, materials and ethics. " from Taylorism 2.0: Gamification, scientific management and the capitalist appropriation of play by Jennifer Dewinter]

["For Bataille, play was one of the conceivable frameworks that foster a type of sacrifice that resembles a gift. The game in a Huizingian (1938) sense of a free activity was therefore interpreted as opposed to alienated work. Gaming and labour would be diametrically opposed, and the ‘sacred’ within play was a source of hope to escape the master-slave dialectic of capital-labour rela- tionships. As Robert Pfaller demonstrates in his article subtitled ‘Bataille reads Huizinga’ (2010), the Bataillian logic is built upon the dialectics of work and play, and one cannot have one without the other. That is why Georges Bataille, with all his sympathies for Huizinga, differs considerably from the Dutch anthropologist when it comes to the implications that follow from the assumptions made in Homo Ludens. The idea that animals can play, for example, is an idea that Bataille cannot share with Huizinga because a play- ing animal would imply that animals can also work in the sense of engaging in labour processes (Pfaller 2010: 23). No playing animal without a working animal is what Bataille insists on." from Gamification as 21st century ideology by Mathias Fuchs]

See also
Gift | Gamification | Work | Productive Play

Pop Culture / Popular Culture

Definition
Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of the practices, beliefs, and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a society at a given point in time. Popular culture also encompasses the activities and feelings produced as a result of interaction with these dominant objects. The primary driving force behind popular culture is mass appeal, and it is produced by what cultural analyst Theodor Adorno refers to as the "culture industry". Heavily influenced in modern times by mass media, this collection of ideas permeates the everyday lives of people in a given society. Therefore, popular culture has a way of influencing an individual's attitudes towards certain topics. However, there are various ways to define pop culture. (...) Popular culture in the West has been critiqued for its being a system of commercialism that privileges products selected and mass-marketed by the upper-class capitalist elite. [Wikipedia]

Who mentioned it
Herbert Marcuse | Theodor Adorno | Max Horkheimer | Antonio Gramsci | Guy Debord | Fredric Jameson | Terry Eagleton | Jean-François Lyotard | Jean Baudrillard | ...

In Context

In One Sentence

See Also
Mass Culture | popular culture | high culture

Popular

Definition
(adjective) liked, enjoyed, or supported by many people
(adjective) (of cultural activities or products) intended for or suited to the taste, understanding, or means of the general public rather than specialists or intellectuals. [oxford language]

Who Mentioned it
Stuart Hall | Theodor Adorno

In Context

In One Sentence

See Also

Popularist / Populist

Definition

• popularist: (adjective) designed for the general public; non-specialist; non-intellectual
  

• populist : (adjective) If you describe a politician or an artist as populist, you mean that they claim to care about the interests and opinions of ordinary people rather than those of a small group.

[Collins English Dictionary]

In Context

In One Sentence

See Also

Populism

Definition
Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against "the elite." A common framework for interpreting populism is known as the ideational approach: this defines populism as an ideology which presents "the people" as a morally good force and contrasts them against "the elite," who are portrayed as corrupt and self-serving. Populists differ in how "the people" are defined, but it can be based along class, ethnic, or national lines. Populists typically present "the elite" as comprising the political, economic, cultural, and media establishment, depicted as a homogeneous entity and accused of placing their own interests, and often the interests of other groups—such as large corporations, foreign countries, or immigrants—above the interests of "the people". [Wikipedia]

In Context

In One Sentence

See Also

Productive

Definition
adjective

1. popular meaning: profitable, economic, efficient (economic sense), producing or able to produce large amounts of goods, crops, or other commodities
2. alternative (subversive?) interpretation: fruitful, rich, inspiring, creative; bringing positive emotions/effects on a personal human level (buildings communities, finding allies, embracing radical friendships, creating safe space etc). Example: helping and supporting a friend in need is the opposite of being productive in the economic sense of the word, but it is very valuable, fruitful, enriching ans in that sense also productive on a personal level

In context

1. You have to be more efficient to make profit.
2. This was a very fruitful conversation! I am so inspired.

In a sentence
Question: Is it possible to embrace the alternative interpretation of the word productive?
See also: Production / Productive Play

Productive Play

Definition

1. popular meaning: it looks and feels like playing (a game), but it's actually work. Sometimes you don't realise you are really working, sometimes you are aware of the fact that the work is "masked" as play.
2. alternative interpretation: as a creative person, you play around with certain materials and tools to experiment and experience a productive process; the state of being inspired / playing games for meaningful social interaction with other individuals.

Who said it
Lidia :)

In context
Vicky Osterweil in "Well Played"

• Video games are a safe, controlled space of growth, learning, and repetition: a desirable fantasy version of the fractured, precarious, ever shifting workplaces most of us find ourselves in.
• Video games, then, are the (highly profitable) media of consolation specific to neoliberalism. They reinforce a vision of a world entirely grounded in competition, and they provide the gratification of experiencing that framework as satisfying, just — we get to win with it, we get to escape through it, we get to experience a sense of mastery even as our lives are even more shaped by larger and larger forces and increasingly unfathomable networks. (1.)
• After-hours labour, masked with enjoyable activities that feel like leisure / also related to self-work (people trying to improve their own capital) (1.)

In a sentence
questions: – what is the difference between productive play and productive game? – how is it possible to subvert the capitalist/neoliberal mechanisms of productive play?

see also
productivity / production / productive / play / self-work / gamificaion

Productivity / Production

Definition
noun

1. the state or quality of being productive.
2. "the long-term productivity of land"

• • the effectiveness of productive effort, especially in industry, as measured in terms of the rate of output per unit of input.
  • "workers have boosted productivity by 30 per cent"

1. [ecology] the rate of production of new biomass by an individual, population, or community; the fertility or capacity of a given habitat or area.

Who said it
Origin of the term - latin; established in early 17th Century; early 17th century: from French productif, -ive or late Latin productivus, from product- ‘brought forth’, from the verb producere.
Marx & Engels: Means of production: a concept that encompasses the social use and ownership of the land, labor, and capital needed to produce goods, services, and their logistical distribution and delivery. Productive forces (Marx & Engels) - In Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' own critique of political economy, it refers to the combination of the means of labor (tools, machinery, land, infrastructure, and so on) with human labour power.
Mode of production: together with the social and technical relations of production, the productive forces constitute a historically specific mode of production.
Also can look at the term as evolving over very long period - starting from tribe culture and productivity of the small tribe society (growing crops, reproduction of the tribe ro survive …), going through medieval landlord society structure, to capitalist usage.

In context
“As bodies we are violently torn from the world’s embrace and belatedly return to it as property owners of ourselves,” Ed Cohen writes in A Body Worth Defending. Under this logic — one that sees bodies as “owned” by selves — care becomes entangled with a sense of duty to make the body endlessly productive, an investment capable of yielding returns. Each individual must be a manager of the self and an investor in the body as a capital stock.
This framework helps address the problem of meaningful work that haunted the old capitalism. Meaning is equated with maintaining the body’s productivity, as Taylor had hoped, fusing the elusive goal of self-esteem to measurable output. Only what it is measured is not work productivity directly but a more general potential capability for discipline and accomplishment, captured through the proxy of the body’s fitness." - "Selfwork", Karen Gregory; Kirsty Hendry; Jake Watts; Dave Young; February 02 __WOW__, 2017]

See also Productive / Productive Play / base / superstructure / capitalism

Reciprocity

Definition
In cultural anthropology, reciprocity refers to the non-market exchange of goods or labour ranging from direct barter (immediate exchange) to forms of gift exchange where a return is eventually expected (delayed exchange) as in the exchange of birthday gifts. It is thus distinct from the true gift, where no return is expected. When the exchange is immediate, as in barter, it does not create a social relationship. When the exchange is delayed, it creates both a relationship as well as an obligation for a return (i.e. debt). Hence, some forms of reciprocity can establish hierarchy if the debt is not repaid. The failure to make a return may end a relationship between equals. (...) Some forms of reciprocity are thus closely related to redistribution, where goods and services are collected by a central figure for eventual distribution to followers. [wikipedia]

Mentioned by
Marcel Mausse |

In Context

See Also
Gift | Gift Economy

Responsabilisation / Responsibilization

Definition
(sociology) The transfer of responsibility from higher authorities to communities or individuals who are then called on to take an active role in resolving their own problems.

Mentioned by
Steeeeeve

In Context

See Also

Self-Work

Definition
Self-work is any action you take towards self-improvement.

Who said it
Mentioned in [ "Selfwork" by Karen Gregory; Kirsty Hendry; Jake Watts; Dave Young

In context

• "As the factory walls of the old capitalism have dissolved into the networks and virtual spaces of the “new economy,” the distinctions between work time, work space, and domestic space have blurred. Under what sociologists Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello have called the “new spirit of capitalism,” technological advances in logistics have made “lean,” “just-in-time” production possible, which demands of workers more flexibility and risk management. This demand was sold to workers as an offer of more freedom and more meaningful work, performed on their own terms, addressing what Boltanski and Chiapello described as the “artistic critique” of the old capitalism, which attacked its tendency to standardize goods and human beings alike."

• "workers are invited to seemingly measure themselves, and use the data for their own personal betterment. This calls for different form of measuring that can assess the worker’s body as valuable property."

• "Wearable technologies bring Taylorism together with the “spirit” of new capitalism, putting them both in direct contact with our bodies. They let us measure our progress while synchronizing and standardizing our selfwork with the demands of waged labor. By using fitness-tracking apps and wearables, the quantification and efficiency fetishes of Taylorism become the logic by which we understand our body’s movement.In individualizing the act of self-care as selfwork, apps push targets, notifications, and nudges onto the user throughout the day as prompts aimed to encourage more activity and, subsequently, more data."

• "Both artistic labor and physical exercise are heralded as ways to know oneself, and both are often reduced to matters of quantifiable information production. They both hinge on incentives that seek to extract free work under the auspices of “investing in one’s own human capital.” Accordingly, both are affected by society’s intensifying entrepreneurial rhetoric and its erosions of the boundaries around work: incentives to self-quantify couched in “do what you love” rhetoric."

See also
productive play / gamification / anxiety / Taylorism

Tempo vs. Rhythm

Definition
Tempo (noun) (plural tempos or tempi | ˈtempē | )
1. Music the speed at which a passage of music is or should be played.
2. The rate or speed of motion or activity; pace

Rhythm (noun)
1. A strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound.
2. The systematic arrangement of musical sounds, principally according to duration and periodic stress.
3. A particular type of pattern formed by rhythm.

Who said it
In the context of industrialisation and principles of scientific management (Taylorism), we differentiate 'tempo' from 'rhythm' according to Simone Weil ('La condition ouvrière'; note: still looking for an english translation). In a factory, for example, the tempo is given by the mechanic of machines and timers to which workers have to adapt. As an other type of temporality, rhythm which is internal, allows one to use their own agency by adjusting efforts and developing intelligent methods of production.

"To pass from rhythm to tempo is to repress this biological temporality" (1)
"This sensitivity to rhythm is inherent to poetry. It is inherent to the metre of the verses, which bring thinking and emotion in one same movement." (2)
Taylorism aims to divide labour into fragmented repetitive tasks, thus depersonalising the work by establishing an oppressive routine (tempo) and suppressing qualified work (work requiring and expertise and therefor the worker's agency). Therefor, Taylorism dissociate the thinking process from the execution process, suppressing the individual possibility to develop method and intelligence in one's work. Workers are desensitised, and their body become tools part of a machine for the sake of efficiency and productivity.

(1)(2): See Alain Supiot' interview on Simone Weil's work

Further thoughts:
"It is never easy to demand the most from ourselves, from our lives, from our work. To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society." (7)

"For within living structures defined by profit, by linear power, by institutional dehumanisation, our feelings were not meant to survive" (6)

internal–external time:
(3)"the awareness of the passing of time is internal"
"distinction between physical time and "internal consciousness of time"
"There is no single time: there is a different duration for every trajectory; and time passes at different rhythms according to place and according to speed."
(5) "electronic consciousness"
-> misalignment/asynchronous
alignment = sense of being in sync -> efficiency and productivity
machine - human time
organic/improvised/standardized/structured
rhythm of an external structure/process that an individual is a part of/tools used in the process

static–moving rhythm:
(3) "rhythm at which things occur that are stationary" vs. "rhythm at which things happen that move with you"
"the energy from one tone sets the other in motion"
(4)"over-amplified resonances that could destroy a system"
(8)"in a rowboat, one's body still feels motion, and rhythm, but not the cadence of a gait. the wave-scale motion has vast intensities...how do we normally move through the world in ways that limit or prohibit the world from entering us?"
oscillate + constant

in context
(1) (2): https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3365-the-perspective-of-the-drowning-alain-supiot-on-simone-weil
Simone Weil (untranslated: :a condition ouvriere)
(6)Audre Lorde "Poetry is not a luxury"
"Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" by Stuart Hall
(3) "The Order of Time" - Carlo Rovelli
(4) "Spectres II: Resonances" - Shelter Press
'Modern times', charlie Chaplin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLeDdzGUTq0
(5) "Stockhausen Serves Imperialism" - Cornelius Cardew
(7) Audre Lord in 'Uses of the erotic'
(8) "Rowboat Phenomenology" - Angela Sakrison

In a sentence
Tempo and rhythm can be seen as two types of temporalities: one being external, mechanical and the other one internal, sensitive.

See also

Toy

Definition
(noun) an object for children to play with: an object that is used by an adult for pleasure rather than for serious use[Cambridge Dictionary]

A toy is an item that is used primarily by children though may also be marketed to adults under certain circumstances. Playing with toys can be an enjoyable means of training young children for life experiences. Different materials like wood, clay, paper, and plastic are used to make toys. Many items are designed to serve as toys, but goods produced for other purposes can also be used. For instance, a small child may fold an ordinary piece of paper into an airplane shape and "fly it." Newer forms of toys include interactive digital entertainment and smart toys. Some toys are produced primarily as collectors' items and are intended for display only. [Wikipedia]

In Context
["Role-playing games are not the only kind of play activity that exists on the border of our definition. A computer program like Sim City does not have explicit goals, and in that way is more like a toy than a game. However, as its designer Will Wright has often stated, players can turn it into a game by constructing their own goals. Does this make Sim City an informal play activity or a formalized game? It all depends on how it is framed." from Rules of Play - Game Design Fundamentals by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman ]

In a Sentence

See also
Play

Authors / Guru(?)

(quick note: the term womxn is transphobic, maybe let's use FINTA instead (female, inter, non-binary, trans, agender)) MORE FINTAs PLEASE!

Angela Davis

Are Prisons Obsolete? (incarcerated labour/slavery)

Theodor W. Adorno

Max Horkheimer

Friedrich Engels

See also [3] / Karl Marx

Michel Foucault

Antonio Gramsci

Stuart Hall

Karl Marx

Raymond Williams

Raymond Henry Williams (1921 – 1988) was a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist and critic influential within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the media and literature contributed to the Marxist critique of culture and the arts. Some 750,000 copies of his books were sold in UK editions alone,[2] and there are many translations available. His work laid foundations for the field of cultural studies and cultural materialism.

Frederick Taylor

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856 – 1915) was an American mechanical engineer. He was widely known for his methods to improve industrial efficiency.[1] He was one of the first management consultants.[2] In 1911, Taylor summed up his efficiency techniques in his book The Principles of Scientific Management which, in 2001, Fellows of the Academy of Management voted the most influential management book of the twentieth century.[3] His pioneering work in applying engineering principles to the work done on the factory floor was instrumental in the creation and development of the branch of engineering that is now known as industrial engineering. Taylor made his name, and was most proud of his work, in scientific management; however, he made his fortune patenting steel-process improvements. As a result, Scientific management is sometimes referred to as Taylorism.

Georges Bataille

Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille 1897 – 1962 was a French philosopher and intellectual working in philosophy, literature, sociology, anthropology, consumerism, and history of art. His writing, which included essays, novels, and poetry, explored such subjects as erotism, mysticism, surrealism, and transgression. His work would prove influential on subsequent schools of philosophy and social th