This study analyzes new forms of literary consumption in the Brazilian market, driven by digital media and literary influencers. To deepen this discussion, the study is based on a case study of the FN’s Book Club, exploring its media impact and Felipe Neto's performative construction within this new niche. The objective is to understand how the entrepreneur's trajectory within the literary community can contribute to the expansion of reading habits among young people. The discussion is grounded in the concepts of cultural and symbolic capital by Bourdieu (1986), contemporary consumption by Campbell (2007), and digital performativities discussed by Abdin (2021) and Polivanov (2019).

This paper presents original research into an underexplored genre of technology criticism that combines elements of conspiratorial thinking, anti-globalist narratives, and critiques of technological overreach. To surface key texts in this genre, the paper employs a novel digital bibliometric method, which repurposes book recommendations from Amazon.com's book marketplace as a research tool to analyze reactionary “narratives of distrust” surrounding “data colonialism.”

This paper discusses new research on a type of technology criticism that blends conspiratorial ideas and critiques of technology's reach. The research uses a digital method to analyze book recommendations from Amazon.com, focusing on texts that express "narratives of distrust" about "data colonialism. " It highlights how this genre of literature criticizes data colonialism by framing Big Tech as part of a larger globalist effort.

The paper references specific books that show skepticism toward technology, especially in relation to artificial intelligence. These works, linked to the MAGA movement, provide an unexpected view of how this ideology interacts with Big Tech while showing distrust of technology's effects on human life. A common theme in these texts is their critique of "transhumanism," which they see as a dangerous agenda by elites attempting to overcome human limits for selfish reasons.

The discussion combines real technology critique with conspiratorial ideas, acknowledging the challenge of distinguishing between theory and conspiracy theory. The paper introduces a novel method called “co-consumption analysis” that repurposes "also bought" book recommendations scraped from Amazon.com, in order to study book networks and indicates that these reactionary texts are becoming more mainstream.

While Internet studies have prioritized social media, e-commerce platforms remain underexplored, particularly regarding how consumers negotiate, resist, and adapt to their sociotechnical infrastructures. This paper examines these dynamics through the case of Temu, a Chinese e-commerce platform that rapidly expanded globally since 2022. Known for gamified interface and ultra-low prices, Temu faces criticism over ethical, environmental, and geopolitical concerns, encapsulating tensions inherent to late capitalist platform economies.

Employing a mixed-method qualitative approach—technical walkthroughs, interviews, and ethnographic observations—this study investigates how users navigate ambivalence toward Temu’s algorithmic practices and business models. We introduce Platform Cynicism as a framework to conceptualize users’ simultaneous skepticism and pragmatic engagement with the platform, shaped by structural constraints and tactical adaptation. This cynicism emerges through four dimensions: (1) ambivalent resistance to purchases, balancing ethical critique with socioeconomic necessity; (2) negotiated resistance to algorithmic manipulation, via tactics like delaying purchases or rejecting recommendations; (3) temporalities of engagement, where resistance shifts with emotional states and life contexts; and (4) relational praxis, as users leverage peer networks to oscillate between solidarity and exploitation.

The study contributes to debates on consumer agency in platform economies by framing platform cynicism as a fluid, context-dependent user-platform dynamics that bridges critical algorithmic studies and consumer culture research. It challenges binary notions of resistance/compliance, revealing how users both subvert and sustain algorithmic power, while advocating for collective action beyond individualized adaptation. This work highlights the contradictions of consumption experiences under late algorithmic capitalism, urging deeper interrogation of everyday platform politics across different sociotechnical contexts.

Although TikTok Shop has not been fully launched in Europe, users are actively repurposing TikTok LIVE to facilitate commercial activity. This paper examines the emergence of live commerce on TikTok LIVE during Black Friday week in the Netherlands, highlighting how users mobilise the platform’s features to stage commerce as an interactive and participatory spectacle. We conceptualise TikTok LIVE as a hybrid space where entertainment, interaction, and commerce converge, reflecting broader trends in the platformisation of consumer culture. Drawing on ethnographic content analysis of 131 TikTok LIVE sessions across 80 accounts (22h37min of content), we employed a ‘follow the medium/traces/users’ approach to document how commerce unfolds within and beyond the app.

First, we identify three selling formats: live auctions mediated via chat, external sales directing users to websites, and community-driven giveaways that reward prior buyers. Each format illustrates evolving norms of interaction between hosts and audiences. Second, we analyse the roles performed during LIVEs, mapping a spectrum from charismatic influencers to transaction-focused sellers, and noting distributed labour across hosts, moderators, and viewers. Third, we show how creators gamify live interactions - through unboxing rituals, celebratory shoutouts, and packing routines - rendering back-end commerce into content. These practices, we argue, exemplify commerce as liveness, reliant on self-surveillance and emotional engagement.

We conclude by reflecting on the consumer law implications of these practices and assess TikTok’s role as a private governor shaping how commerce is organised and experienced on its platform.