ABSTRACT
Technologies of sociality and connection produce crowds that are digitally enabled. Virality is located in this epidemiological space in which a world of things mixes with emotions, sensations, affects, and moods, all of which are supposedly in abundance in the overly embodied crowd. The recording and digital circulation of Samiul Alam Rajon’s murder, however, added a whole new element to an otherwise routine affair in a peripheral town. The crowd of molesters successfully evaded the actuarial gaze of the state, though not the gazes of digital media consumers, as the case may be. The Human Flesh Search, for its part, tells a story that resonates with the digital responses to mob violence in Bangladesh. A few images of crowds that went viral on Bangladeshi mass media in the months and years after the Shahbag and Hefazot face-off bring into relief the cultural valences of contagion and crowd action.
