In this text, we are guided by Freud’s “A child is being beaten” formulas and we will reveal the masochist fantasy on which Virtual Lordship relies [1].

Part and parcel of being a virtual lord is the behavior of blocking a person on behalf of a group [2]. Since virtual lordship is an authority that is neither earned nor deserved, this blocking behavior is surely somewhat unjust. But instead of disapproving and frowning upon this injustice (instead of asserting superego moralism) it’s more important to understand the enjoyment produced by this behavior, and especially not the sadist enjoyment of the virtual lord who is doing the blocking but the masochist enjoyment produced in those who are witnessing the blocking. Such an analysis will be also instructive in issues like cancel culture, lynching and scapegoating [3].

An account is being blocked (A child is being beaten).

The virtual lord’s behavior is perceived in this way as an incident. In fact, since the blocking is executed on behalf the group, every person in the group has a part in this event albeit indirectly, and they possess a right to intervene with the virtual lord who has perched on top of them, by saying “You cannot do this on my behalf!” If they wanted to, a few group members could even gather and say “You cannot do this on our behalf!” But nobody prefers to use this right, why?

If you ask the members, they will give “technical” explanations: “I’m not the Admin, I don’t have the block button under my hand, the Admin’s authority to block is not part of my relation to him/her, nobody can hold me responsible…” There are just ambiguous pieces of information that various accounts are being blocked for unknown reasons. One never prefers to ask which account is blocked for what reason. Also the structure of social media is based on the assumption that this question will never be raised. The function of this disavowal is to conceal the libido that the members have invested in the Admin’s power to block. What renders the Admin a Virtual Lord is precisely this libidinal investment that attaches the group members to the group via him/her.

When the first wall of disavowal that encloses the first thought about the incident is broken, another thought emerges which is somewhat more definite and concrete:

The Admin is blocking the troll (My father is beating the child/my sibling whom I hate).

The incident is henceforth perceived as an action because its subject and object is clarified. This thought is much more concrete than the previous one, because a critical information accompanies it: The Admin is blocking the troll, because (s)he loves me. This very narcissistic thought of being loved is the main element that pads the Admin’s Adminhood as well as the troll’s trollhood with imaginary meanings. Even if one might begin to question which account is blocked for what reason, this issue will quickly be closed to debate by stigmatizing as trolls those who are being blocked, due to the intensity of the fantasy of being loved by someone powerful. The notion of henchman refers to the fantasy “(s)he is powerful and (s)he loves me”. But this fantasy is not the last stop, it is just a screen that conceals a deeper fantasy.

We’ve said that, in the first emergence of the incident, an indeterminacy was predominant as to who was being blocked and whether this person was singular or plural. The recognition of the incident as an action with a subject and an object brought out an impression that this indeterminacy was resolved, because the blocked account was stigmatized as a troll, thereby validating the Admin’s love for the action’s witnesses. But if one pays close attention to the incident “An account is being blocked”, one becomes aware that it cannot be reduced to the action “The Admin is blocking the troll” and that the stigma of the troll can never cover over the initial indeterminacy. When the stigma of the troll is unveiled, “an account” that fell victim to the blocking is revealed to be the object of identification, “me”:

The Admin is blocking me (My father is beating me).

This is the masochist fantasy that underlies the libidinal investment that attaches the group members to the Admin. This unconscious fantasy can come into consciousness by hiding behind a negation: “What if (s)he does not love me one day? What if (s)he blocks me just like (s)he has blocked that troll?” A group member who is engulfed by this kind of thinking no longer needs to worry about being blocked, because asking oneself questions like this indicates that (s)he has already accepted the Admin’s authority without question. If (s)he cannot liberate themself from this manner of thinking, (s)he has practically already made the Admin block themself, because adopting this masochist fantasy amounts to habituating themself to the idea of being blocked. This second fantasy is the submission that underlies every henchman. This is the very element that makes a Virtual Lord a Virtual Lord. This reminds us the famous riddle: Can the one who fulfills the masochist’s desire be called a sadist?

(Turkish)

Işık Barış Fidaner is a computer scientist with a PhD from Boğaziçi University, İstanbul. Admin of Yersiz Şeyler, Editor of Žižekian Analysis, Curator of Görce Writings. Twitter: @BarisFidaner

Notes:

[1] About this formula, see Freud’s “A child is being beaten”, also Lacan’s Seminar 4 and Looking Awry (1991) by Slavoj Žižek.

[2] See “Grup Adına İnsan Bloklamak Sanal Ağa Davranışıdır”

[3] Exemplary case: “Beware of the superego virus! Don’t excuse your erasure!”

Image source.