ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we explore the impact of digital virtuality on our relationship to the other, both to the object that stands outside of us and the sense of alterity that inhabits our psychic lives. We investigate the many ways in which the digital can be used as a tool of disavowal, overcoming otherness and difference for the sake of self-aggrandizement. At the same time we show how our new technologies can also be used constructively to negotiate and bridge otherness, expanding our capacity to tolerate, bear, and grow from the encounter with difference. We use many examples from everyday digital life to illustrate our points, as well as draw upon instances from popular culture, including Spike Jonze’s film Her and Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade. We close the chapter with a detailed analysis of the Black Mirror episode U.S.S. Callister, as we explore the magnification of sadism and cruelty that can happen when the disavowal of the other inherent to digitality is given free reign in the virtual world.
