Why do people stay attached to conventional good-life fantasies-say, of enduring reciprocity in couples,įamilies, political systems, institutions, markets, and at work- when the evidence of their instability,įragility, and dear cost abounds? > essay! Way of surviving. To a situation of profound threat that is, at the same time, profoundly confirming
Sustaining regardless of the content of the relation, such that a person or a world finds itself bound
Striving and, doubly, it is cruel insofar as the very pleasures of being inside a relation have become Makes it impossible to attain the expansive transformation for which a person or a people risks But, again, optimism is cruel when the object/scene that ignites a sense of possibility actually This time, nearness to this thing will help you or a world to become different in just the right way. Whatever the experience of optimism is in particular, then, the affective structure of an optimisticĪttachment involves a sustaining inclination to return to the scene of fantasy that enables you to expect that Sense in the wake of a person, a way of life, an object, project, concept, or scene
The world in order to bring closer the satisfying something that you cannot generate on your own but They become cruel only when the object thatĭraws your attachment actively impedes the aim that brought you to it initiallyĪll attachment is optimistic, if we describe optimism as the force that moves you out of yourself and into These kinds of optimistic relation are not inherently cruel. It might rest on something simpler, too, like a new habit that promises to induce in you an improved Might involve food, or a kind of love it might be a fantasy of the good life, or a political project. Duke University PressĪ relation of cruel optimism exists when something you desire is actually an obstacle to your flourishing. His work has appeared in Media International Australia Chinese Journal of Communication International Journal of Communication International Journal of Cultural Studies Media, Culture & Society New Media & Society and Information, Communication & Society among others.Berlant, L. His research interests include disability studies, cultural studies and communication studies. [email: Lin (PhD) is a Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Jinan Uni- versity, Guangzhou, China. [email: Yinan Wang is a Master’s candidate in the School of Journalism and Communication at Jinan University, Guangzhou, China. Recent publications include peer-review journal articles on Information, Communication & Society, Critical Arts, China Information, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Television & New Media and Feminist Media Studies. Her research interests centre on new media, gender, sexuality, and their intersections. Tingting Liu (PhD) is an Associate Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Jinan University, Guangzhou, China. No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). It also clearly demonstrates that, while digital dating ignites a sense of possibility and desire, particularly among individuals of lower socioeconomic status, it fails to support these users in tackling the structural inequalities obstructing realization of their desire. Hence, the study empirically extends the literature on digital dating beyond its traditional focus on Western contexts. Specifically, rural migrant men have described themselves as being harshly excluded or exploited on the dating scene, whereas rural migrant women have reported that they have unwittingly dated men with deceptive profiles or developed romantic relationships that were dashed by economic turmoil. Our research shows that these obstacles (both ‘virtual' and ‘real') are highly gendered, which is partly related to a cultural shift towards materialism in the Chinese society. It juxtaposes the rural migrant workers’ encouraged engagement with digital dating with interview accounts which reveal that digital dating presents a large sum of obstacles to the fulfilment of sexual and romantic desire. Based upon thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in South China, this study employs Lauren Berlant’s concept of cruel optimism to examine how Chinese rural migrant workers – an economically and culturally disadvantaged group – use digital dating services and select dates.