The article discusses a series of events pertaining to the global economic recession (2007–2014) and analyzes the role of current technologies, including social media platforms, in the new aestheticization of the origins of social groups involved in revolt. The author employs historical analysis in order to establish an argument for the inevitability of the repetition of world-historic facts, paralleling it with Marx‘s well known passage: “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce”. The article deploys Benjamin‘s introduction and usage of the term degeneration [Entartung] in his critical analysis of artistic and political practices. The second part of the article addresses the issue of culture industry and mass media and how they engendered “postdemocracy [that] erased true politics”, as succinctly put by Rancière. However, postdemocracy did not foresee the collective power possessed by contemporary technologies of social media. These technologies played a crucial role both in the uprisings against the measures to save financial capitalism and elites, and the rise of Donald J. Trump to the presidency. The concluding remarks return to the article‘s outset by stating that the first (leftist) usage of social media and related technologies has tragically failed in its ambitions for radical emancipatory change. On the other hand, the second (right-wing) repetition was indeed successful in achieving its particular goals.
