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‘This Dapper Hotty Is Working That Tweed Look’: Extending Workplace Affects on TubeCrush

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Digital Intimate Publics and Social Media

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change ((PSCSC))

Abstract

This chapter analyses the website TubeCrush, where commuters share images of unsolicited attractive men on the London Underground. The chapter understands TubeCrush as a digital intimate public because it creates commonality in the desires of straight women and gay men. But TubeCrush also engages with and extends workplace affects by bringing them into the commute, locating TubeCrush in new urban post-Fordist economy. The analysis brings together intimate publics and workplace affects by analysing romance, the celebration of financial masculinities, and labours of the body. The authors argue that TubeCrush provides a sense of sociality and community, alleviating the alienation of the post-Fordist city. However, this is produced through an online distribution of images that orients the user to normative desires, closing down radical potential.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Coventry University, Coventry, UK

    Adrienne Evans

  2. Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, UK

    Sarah Riley

Authors
  1. Adrienne Evans
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  2. Sarah Riley
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Correspondence to Adrienne Evans .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Curtin University, Bentley, WA, Australia

    Amy Shields Dobson

  2. Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Brady Robards

  3. School of Communication and Arts, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Nicholas Carah

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Evans, A., Riley, S. (2018). ‘This Dapper Hotty Is Working That Tweed Look’: Extending Workplace Affects on TubeCrush. In: Dobson, A.S., Robards, B., Carah, N. (eds) Digital Intimate Publics and Social Media. Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97607-5_8

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