ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the case of the Austrian writer Stefanie Sargnagel focusing on the hateful reactions to a 2017 fictional travelogue published in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard. Her case is exceptional because she did not only live through, but also publicly commented on the outburst of hate she faced. Moreover, Sargnagel – as an astute observer of the mechanisms of social media – exposes the logics of hate speech in social media and shows how they work in triggering the reactions she wants to turn the readers’ attention to. Sargnagel’s reactions and reflections, the chapter argues, shed light on the phenomenon of hate as an affective network that runs through the online and the offline world.
