Bonus Sample: Max Haiven’s The Player and the Played

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Max Haiven's The Player and the Played: From Gamed Capitalism to Twenty-First Century Fascism (MIT Press, 2026) argues that financialized capitalism has turned us all into speculative "players" in rigged games. It produces a "cheated player" whose resentment the far right redirects onto scapegoats rather than the ruling class. This is what contemporary fascism is. 

Matthew reviews Haiven’s re-reading of the conspirituality era: QAnon as a participatory game, Gamergate as a prototype of the "playgrom," and January 6th as a swarm of user-generated fascism. He traces how his own frameworks for conspirituality have shifted: cult dynamics, Lagalisse on conspiracy theory as allegory, Dean's communicative capitalism, Lubrano on the limits of persuasion. 

NOTE: Contains Squid Game spoilers through season 3.

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