Social challenges: the serious game of digitalization

Abstract

With the arrival of digitalization, now accompanied by gamification and the existence of virtual reputations, video games have become a sign of progress for some and the precursor of inequalities for others. Aside from these differences, what is unquestionable is the centrality of digitalization in education (e-learning, digital literacy, etc.), work (free work, digital competence) and the economy (start-ups, the sharing economy, block-chains), not to mention the actual media (TDT, new media, transmedia). This is the main scenario in which we propose to discuss a little recognized practice: viral challenges. Far from being something meaningless among typical immature adolescents, “viral challenges” can be understood as serious games, as initiation rituals within the environments and logics of augmented reality. In concrete, we propose to examine them as possible theatricalizations and lessons for a virally enhanced body, which in turn permits us to connect them to certain posthuman theses regarding the importance of the body per se (versus the brand or virtual reputation)