Networked Intimacies : Pandemic Dis/Connections Between Anxiety, Joy, and Laughter

• This chapter zooms in on transformations of intimacy and relational spaces in a time of a viral, global crisis. Set against the backdrop of “social distancing” practices, the chapter opens with a discussion of digital intimacy, focusing on the layering of anxiety and anticipation within networked connectivity. Secondly, it moves on to discuss how such anticipatory anxiety may become punctuated by pleasure and joy. Considering the dynamics between physical disconnection and digital intensity within pandemic hookup practices, it explores in particular instances of quarantine humor in queer hookup cultures. This humor stems from impossibly contradictory spaces of self-isolation, desire, and longing, in relation to which the swiftness of the swipe is transformed into a disconnect in the shape of a delay. The chapter ends with an example of Swedish, queer quarantine humor and a discussion of partial disconnections, or selective connectivity in difficult times in the interest of self-care.

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Klinisk medicin -- Geriatrik (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Clinical Medicine -- Geriatrics (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa, socialmedicin och epidemiologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Medievetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Media Studies (hsv//eng)

Keyword

anxiety

anticipation

COVID-19

digital intimacy

networked connectivity

pandemic hookup cultures

pleasure

queer quarantine humor

Media and Communication Studies

Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap

Kritisk kulturteori

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kap (subject category)