Bodies, Brands, and Bullies: Culture Jamming and the Livestreaming of Engagement

Abstract

This article uses a case study of an anti-brand protest that was livestreamed on Twitch to develop a media and cultural studies framework for conceptualizing livestreaming platforms as mechanisms that extract engagement and discoverability value from cultural noise. It begins with a review of several fields of literature: branding, media activism, and culture jamming; livestreaming and affective labor; and social media platforms, affective economies, and noise. Then, it synthesizes this literature into a conceptualization of livestreaming’s cultural product and form, connecting its product to the extraction of engagement metrics from affective economies and its form to the affective labor that livestreamers are performing for the purposes of developing personal brands. Finally, it connects the record-setting viewership numbers the Hogwarts Legacy protest created for Twitch to an affective economy of joy, sadness, anger, and nostalgia, focusing specifically on how this economy became a driver of engagement and discoverability value for a transmedia brand.