Digital face-ism and micro-fascism

The exchange of digital images depicting partial bodies is an iconic feature of online dating and contemporary sexuality. I build on previous writing and concepts explored by Deleuze and Guattari in regards to how such images function as "affection-images" (Deleuze, 1986). I then articulate how employing an affective structure of "faciality" (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988) that not only orients our tendencies towards certain faces, but also bodies and body parts, is of political concern in an era of digital capitalism. The reading of faces and bodies that become "facialised", that is, communicate degrees of affection through digital interfaces, contributes to an algorithmic averaging-out of desire. The key to this critique is that the digital exacerbates pre-existing "micro-fascisms". These rules of acceptance or rejection that exist on a personal level in all individuals, in collaboration with the rapid availability and processing of faces and bodies online, allows such averaging-out to occur. The writing also makes significant reference to Sarah Ahmed (2006) and Judith Butler (1988).