First as tragedy, then as tease: marketable cynicism and the return of fascism

This commentary calls on our scholarly community to rethink what Fascism might be in the twenty-first century, and what its origins in social media consumption might have to tell us about the connection between neoliberal market cultures and political instability. I argue that Fascism is still a relevant concept for analysing our present moment, as long as it is not framed by early twentieth-century definitions. Rather than use Fascism as a convenient label, it should be understood as a manifestation of a particular post-Enlightenment form of conduct, namely cynicism. It is this mindset, that of the cynic, which ought to be at the centre of current analyses of the causal relationship between digitally mediated consumption forms and the carious fragmentation of formerly stable democratic institutions. The commentary concludes by outlining the contours of a research programme on consumer cynicism.