DIGITAL DISSONANCE: HORROR CULTURES IN THE AGE OF CONVERGENT TECHNOLOGIES by DANIEL POWELL M.A. Portland State University, 2002 B.S. Linfield College, 1999 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Texts & Technology in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Spring Term 2017 Major Professor: Rudy McDaniel © 2017 Daniel Powell ii ABSTRACT The first two decades of the new millennium have witnessed an abundance of change in the areas of textual production, digital communication, and our collective engagement with the Internet. This study explores these changes, which have yielded both positive and negative cultural and developmental outcomes, as products of digital dissonance. Dissonance is characterized by the disruptive consequences inherent in technology’s incursion into the print publication cultures of the twentieth century, the explosion in social-media interaction that is changing the complexion of human contact, and our expanding reliance on the World Wide Web for negotiating commerce, culture, and communication. This study explores digital dissonance through the prism of an emerging literary subgenre called technohorror. Artists working in the area of technohorror are creating works that leverage the qualities of plausibility, mundanity, and surprise to tell important stories about how technology is altering the human experience in the twenty-first century. This study explores such subjects as paradigmatic changes in textual production methods, dynamic authorial hybridity, digital materiality in folklore studies, posthumanism, transhumanism, cognitive diminution, and physical degeneration as explored in works of technohorror. The work’s rhetorical architecture includes elements of both theoretical and qualitative research. This project expands on City University of New York philosophy professor Noël Carroll’s definition of art-horror in developing a formal explanation of technohorror and then exploring that literary subgenre through the analysis of a series of contemporary texts and industry-related trends. The study also contains original interviews with active scholars, artists, editors, and librarians in the horror field to gain a variety of perspectives on these complicated subjects. iii for Dave and Lori iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS For their encouragement, feedback, and guidance on this project, I would like to thank Dr. Michael Arnzen, Dr. Martha Brenckle, Dr. James Campbell, and Dr. Rudy McDaniel. I am also deeply indebted to those that were willing to answer questions for this study. Ken Liu, Ellen Datlow, Michael Morrison, Tony Magistrale, Dale Bailey, Kij Johnson, Nick Mamatas, Kirsten Kowalewski, Lisa Indigo, and Angel Leigh McCoy provided insights and observations that keenly critique the current state of horror while speculating on what the near future may hold for the field. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................... viii LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... ix PREFACE ....................................................................................................................................... 1 THE NATURE OF TECHNOHORROR........................................................................................ 8 A Taxonomy of the Horrific ............................................................................................. 13 Toward a Definition of Technohorror............................................................................... 34 On the Nature of Medium, Production, and Content ........................................................ 39 PIONEERING PLATFORMS: IMAGINATION, INVENTION, AND INNOVATION IN HORROR CULTURES ................................................................................................................ 47 Interview Findings and the Evolving Digital Paradigm ................................................... 68 Exploring an Eternal Narrative ......................................................................................... 76 FROM FOLKLORE TO NETLORE: ESOTERIC DIGITAL CULTURES AND THE REMEDIATION OF HORRIFIC FOLK NARRATIVES ........................................................... 79 Folklore as Meaningful Communication in Digital Contexts ......................................... 107 TRANSCENDENCE IN TECHNOHORROR: DIGITAL DISSONANCE AND THE DENATURED HUMAN ............................................................................................................ 109 Posthumanism: Speculating Beyond the Human Individual .......................................... 115 Degeneration: Overcoming the Broken Body ................................................................. 126 Transcendence: Rejecting the Body for the Machine ..................................................... 131 Reconnecting with Our Human Heritage ........................................................................ 139 TECHNOHORROR AND THE HUMAN CONDITION: SEARCHING FOR MEANING IN A RAPIDLY CHANGING CULTURE ......................................................................................... 142 Technologies of Terror and the Loss of the Self............................................................. 146 vi Navigating the Paradox of Progressive Science and Natural Aging ............................... 160 Toward a Healthy Approach to Life and Longevity ....................................................... 167 PROGRAMMING NIGHTMARES: TECHNOHORROR AND LIFE IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY .................................................................................................................................. 171 Interview Findings and Assessing Horror in the Twenty-First Century ......................... 174 Recognizing the Dilemma ............................................................................................... 179 Finding a Way Forward .................................................................................................. 184 APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT, DR. DALE BAILEY ....................................... 195 APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT, LISA INDIGO ................................................. 198 APPENDIX C: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT, KIJ JOHNSON ................................................ 201 APPENDIX D: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT, KIRSTEN KOWALEWSKI ............................ 204 APPENDIX E: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT, KEN LIU .......................................................... 210 APPENDIX F: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT, DR. TONY MAGISTRALE ............................ 215 APPENDIX G: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT, NICK MAMATAS .......................................... 218 APPENDIX H: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT, ANGEL LEIGH MCCOY ............................... 224 APPENDIX I: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT, DR. MICHAEL MORRISON ........................... 228 APPENDIX J: COPYRIGHT INFORMATION ........................................................................ 232 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 237 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Mr. Karswell’s Magic Lantern Show, art by Paul Boswell ........................................... 26 Figure 2: Weird Tales, 1942, art by Edmond Good ...................................................................... 41 Figure 3: Herobrine’s first appearance, n.d., Minecraft Fanon Wiki .......................................... 101 Figure 4: Cell, Scribner, 2006, artwork by Mark Stutzman ........................................................ 152 Figure 5: They Live, 1988, dir. John Carpenter ........................................................................... 154 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Taxonomy of the Horrific ............................................................................................... 18 Table 2: Popular Vampire Narratives Through Time and Across Media ..................................... 77 Table 3: Diffusion of News Posts to Platforms, Tow Center for Digital Journalism ................... 87 Table 4: Posts to Platforms by Publication, Tow Center for Digital Journalism .......................... 87 Table 5: Popular Vernacular Webs Covering Horror Culture ...................................................... 90 ix PREFACE The law of acceleration hurtles us into the inscrutable future. But it cannot wipe the slate of the past. History haunts even generations who refuse to learn history. Rhythms, patterns, continuities, drift out of time long forgotten to mold the present and to color the shape of things to come. Science and technology revolutionize our lives, but memory, tradition, and myth frame our response. Expelled from individual consciousness by the rush of change, history finds its revenge by stamping the collective unconscious with habits, values, expectations, dreams. The dialectic between past and future will continue to form our lives. ~ Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., The Cycles of American History The careful study of texts and technology yields critical insights into the histories and social architectures of various cultures, for these closely connected domains often disclose how societies communicate, dream, and evolve. By scrutinizing the development of language and communication, for instance, we can critically analyze stories