Assédio moral como governamentalidade de consumo: Explorando o lado negro das interações no cosplay

Cosplay allows consumers to experience pop culture characters by sharing their performances virtually or in person. Considering that virtual interactions present both positive and negative sociability, this study aims to investigate how dark-side virtual interactions govern consumer performance. We seek to fill the literature gap about consumer governmentality sustained by the social network dark side. Ethnographic Foucauldian Genealogy was applied to analyze data from online ethnographic interviews, virtual ethnomethodology, and netnography conducted with cosplayers from around the world. The results point to the moral harassment dispositif used to achieve governmentality when cosplayers institutionalize a repressive rationality that limits the actions of their peers. The research raises a reflection on how some consumers supposedly (re)produce knowledge to guide and hinder the behavior of others, producing a market governmentality.