ABSTRACT
Selves have been unruly and chaotic in many different historical moments and cultural contexts. In what ways is the unmanageable self that the American undergraduates were describing to the author a specifically neoliberal self? The author follows Frederick Kittler's analytical insights by asking how different technologies both enable people to experience their selves in new ways, as well as exploring how these technologies can help orient people to the problems of being social in new ways. Each technology serves as a distinctive vehicle for people to explore the quandaries of being a neoliberal self. Facebook enables people to explore the dilemmas of managing one's social relationships using neoliberal views of information—always incomplete and yet one must decide future actions based on this information by imagining particular future scenarios that putatively allow one to manage risk. Cell phones allow people to explore the problems of managing one's alliances when too much contact can unravel the alliances.
