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This chapter explores the emerging phenomenon of Arab social media streamers who adopt nonhuman personas—such as animals and objects—on platforms like TikTok. Framed within the postdigital condition, where boundaries between online and offline existence blur, these performances challenge traditional notions of humanity, identity, and recognition. We draw on ethnographic interviews, platform analytics, and theoretical insights from posthumanism, critical theory, and digital studies to examine how these acts of ‘becoming nonhuman’ serve as strategic interventions against systemic marginalization and economic precarity. To drive this idea home, we examine the case of Ana Samaka (@iamfish4), a pioneer of this trend, revealing how these performances (1) disrupt normative humanist constructs, (2) expose societal hypocrisies, and (3) reimagine the possibilities of recognition and belonging in a digitally mediated world. The study argues that these seemingly absurd acts are not merely spectacles but deliberate forms of resistance, enabling marginalized individuals to negotiate their exclusion and articulate new modes of selfhood. The chapter contributes to postdigital theory by reframing digital performances as sites of ontological and ethical reconfiguration, offering a critical discussion that seeks to understand the evolving dynamics of identity, value, and sociality in an increasingly interconnected world.

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‘My Mother Was a Computer Fish’: Re-Thinking the Human and Re-Imagining the Humane in the Postdigital Turn

  • 章节

  • 发表日期：

    2025年

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  • Farouk El Maarouf,
  • Moulay Driss El Maarouf

摘要

This chapter explores the emerging phenomenon of Arab social media streamers who adopt nonhuman personas—such as animals and objects—on platforms like TikTok. Framed within the postdigital condition, where boundaries between online and offline existence blur, these performances challenge traditional notions of humanity, identity, and recognition. We draw on ethnographic interviews, platform analytics, and theoretical insights from posthumanism, critical theory, and digital studies to examine how these acts of ‘becoming nonhuman’ serve as strategic interventions against systemic marginalization and economic precarity. To drive this idea home, we examine the case of Ana Samaka (@iamfish4), a pioneer of this trend, revealing how these performances (1) disrupt normative humanist constructs, (2) expose societal hypocrisies, and (3) reimagine the possibilities of recognition and belonging in a digitally mediated world. The study argues that these seemingly absurd acts are not merely spectacles but deliberate forms of resistance, enabling marginalized individuals to negotiate their exclusion and articulate new modes of selfhood. The chapter contributes to postdigital theory by reframing digital performances as sites of ontological and ethical reconfiguration, offering a critical discussion that seeks to understand the evolving dynamics of identity, value, and sociality in an increasingly interconnected world.