What is the face of the internet? Do the countless images of faces and bodies circulating within it affect what it looks like and how it is experienced? Although we like to think of the internet as an open, multivocal, and diverse space, this image is no longer accurate. Today’s platforms of communication are zones of sameness, with algorithms filtering out anything that is considered unknown or unfamiliar. With echo chambers and filter bubbles shaping homogenized and polarized pseudo-public spheres, it becomes difficult to reimagine a unifying and emancipatory internet. Taking the role of viral posts, memes, and selfies as a starting point, this unmoderated conversation will discuss the potential of opacity, queerness, and blaccelerationism, and speculate about networks of affect and excess.

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