CROWDFRONTING, 2017

Fantasies of care float around social media in the guise of crowdfunding. “Crowd-fronting” brings to radical resource redistribution an array of problems for those in need and those moved to respond to need. It’s a front since despite the convenience of instantaneous reward, people also get to perform a relationship that can sometimes have less stakes. What arises isn’t necessarily that different from the offline world prior to social media, as the features of fundraising always contain the problem of accountability; a fantasy performing the status of kinship without the drama of shared stakes. Increasingly, for some the fantasy suffices. Sometimes these commodified arrangements carry an auto-erotic significance. These factors are in some ways made worse by the time and space distortion social media can cause, and this distortion is a valid concern for our communities when need arises. While vital resource assistance can be gathered in rapid response, those in need can also be disadvantaged due to the asymmetrical distribution of social value. The question is left open as to what accountability a welfare state has to anti-authoritarians and the resource-scarcity-related issues they mobilize around.