Does it pay to slay? Living online is not free. In an economy of hotness, rewards, desire, and risk, who cashes in? Today, a whole internet runs on monetising and maintaining the economy of the girl online. She is a token. She is content. She moves seamlessly across platforms, her worth measured in the value of exchange. She trades on the ambiguous nature of women’s work – care, affect, sex – and is often paid informally, in the form of gifts, treats, or ‘little somethings’.

Examining the economy of networked personhood, Alex Quicho, Rachel O’Dwyer, and Georgina Voss analyse the intensifying fantasy of the good life and the financial nihilism at its core. Investigating the complex negotiations at play and the cost of becoming content, they ask: what new types of relationships, ownership structures, models of control, and tactics of deceit emerge though the figure of the girl as living currency?

The participation of Rachel O'Dwyer is supported by Zeitgeist Irland 24, an initiative of Culture Ireland and the Embassy of Ireland in Germany.