Weird Economies presents "The Exploits of Play"

About Weird Economies presents "The Exploits of Play"

Against the Fascist Game is the second season of The Exploits of Play, a podcast about games and capitalism. Join Max Haiven and Faye Harvey as they interview game designers, critical theorists and grassroots activists struggling with games to understand, confront and abolish the rising threat of fascism in our times. We ask questions including: how is the far-right using games as platforms for ideology, recruiting and violence, both close to home and around the world? How have vicious reactionary politics emerged from a form of capitalism where most people feel trapped in an unwinnable game? What do fascism and antifascism mean today? And what role, if any do play and games have in confronting the fascist threat and creating a new world? The Exploits of Play is a production of Weird Economies, a platform for exploring the intricacies and excesses of our economic imaginaries, in cooperation with RiVAL: The ReImagining Value Action Lab. Credits: Weird Economies founder and organiser: Bahar Noorizadeh Weird Economies organiser: James Elsey Host: Max Haiven Producer: Faye Harvey Sponsor: Canada Council for the Arts For more information please visit weirdeconomies.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

Publisher

Weird Economies

Category

science · society & culture · technology

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

4 Mar 2024

Latest episode

1 Oct 2025

Latest episodes

6 of 17 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   1 Oct 2025TRANSCRIPT

   Virtual Palestine with Omar Zahzah

   In this episode, we speak with Omar Zahzah about his new book Terms of Servitude: Zionism, Silicon Valley, and Digital Settler Colonialism in the Palestinian Liberation Struggle, published by the Censored Press and Seven Stories Press. Our conversation touches on: the gamified collaboration between big-tech and the apparatus of mass murder and apartheid; the digital targeting, harassment and silencing of Palestinian solidarity organizers; the colonial violence invested in the algorithms that shape our lives (and deaths); and the way a profoundly transformative "Virtual Palestine" is created through the protagonism of those resisting genocide and their supporters around the world. Omar Zahzah is a writer, poet, artist, musician, freelance journalist, and Assistant Professor of Arab, and Muslim, Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies in the Department of Race and Resistance Studies at San Francisco State University. Omar is the former Education and Advocacy Coordinator for Eyewitness Palestine, a role that saw him training delegates to Palestine on Palestinian political history and culture and racial justice. Omar’s writing on Palestine has appeared in outlets such as The Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss, Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, andThe Nation. Omar holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from UCLA. Against the Fascist Game is the second season of The Exploits of Play, a podcast about games and capitalism. Join Max Haiven and Faye Harvey as they interview game designers, critical theorists and grassroots activists struggling with games to understand, confront and abolish the rising threat of fascism in our times. We ask questions including: how is the far-right using games as platforms for ideology, recruiting and violence, both close to home and around the world? How have vicious reactionary politics emerged from a form of capitalism where most people feel trapped in an unwinnable game? What do fascism and antifascism mean today? And what role, if any do play and games have in confronting the fascist threat and creating a new world? The Exploits of Play is a production of Weird Economies, a platform for exploring the intricacies and excesses of our economic imaginaries, in cooperation with RiVAL: The ReImagining Value Action Lab. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

2. 

   8 Sept 2025TRANSCRIPT

   Rulemakers and Rulebreakers with Vicky Osterweil

   In this episode we discuss the contradiction within games between gender play and fantasies to control and order; video games as reproductive technology; the playfulness of the far right which could be characterised as play without pleasure; how rulebreaking and gamebreaking play out in liberal democracy and fascism; and the possibilities of play and protest in antifascist practices and riotous revolution. Vicky Osterweil is a writer, worker and agitator based in Philadelphia. She is a founding member of the anarchist writing collective CAW, which can be found at cawshinythings.com She is the author of In Defense of Looting and the forthcoming book The Extended Universe: How Disney Destroyed the Movies and Took Over the World. Against the Fascist Game is the second season of The Exploits of Play, a podcast about games and capitalism. Join Max Haiven and Faye Harvey as they interview game designers, critical theorists and grassroots activists struggling with games to understand, confront and abolish the rising threat of fascism in our times. We ask questions including: how is the far-right using games as platforms for ideology, recruiting and violence, both close to home and around the world? How have vicious reactionary politics emerged from a form of capitalism where most people feel trapped in an unwinnable game? What do fascism and antifascism mean today? And what role, if any do play and games have in confronting the fascist threat and creating a new world? The Exploits of Play is a production of Weird Economies, a platform for exploring the intricacies and excesses of our economic imaginaries, in cooperation with RiVAL: The ReImagining Value Action Lab. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

3. 

   18 Aug 2025

   Fight Fight Fight with Jack Bratich

   In this episode, we discussed the concept of microfascism, which refers to everyday life practices, and intersubjective relations that establish power dynamics and form the organisation of desire. The yearning for and supplication to power is at work in everyone and must constantly be guarded against, for these are easily amenable to fascist organisations and movements. As the saying goes: “Kill the cop in your head!” We also discussed martial masculinity as it manifests in combat sports such as Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), as well as figures of such franchises such as Dana White, who is a close associate of Trump and many other fascist personalities. Jack Z. Bratich writes about the intersection of popular culture and political culture. He applies social and political theory to such topics as social movements, craft culture, patriarchal subjectivities, and the cultures of secrecy. He is professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University and author of On Microfascism: Gender, War, Death (Common Notions, 2022) and Conspiracy Panics: Political Rationality and Popular Culture (2008). His latest publication is “What Can a Body Do(om)?: Fratriarchy’s Affects and the Capacities to Break Together” (2025) in Capacities to: Affect Up Against Fascism. Against the Fascist Game is the second season of The Exploits of Play, a podcast about games and capitalism. Join Max Haiven and Faye Harvey as they interview game designers, critical theorists and grassroots activists struggling with games to understand, confront and abolish the rising threat of fascism in our times. We ask questions including: how is the far-right using games as platforms for ideology, recruiting and violence, both close to home and around the world? How have vicious reactionary politics emerged from a form of capitalism where most people feel trapped in an unwinnable game? What do fascism and antifascism mean today? And what role, if any do play and games have in confronting the fascist threat and creating a new world? The Exploits of Play is a production of Weird Economies, a platform for exploring the intricacies and excesses of our economic imaginaries, in cooperation with RiVAL: The ReImagining Value Action Lab. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

4. 

   18 Jul 2025TRANSCRIPT

   Fanatical Fun - Adrienne Massanari on the path from #Gamergate to Trump II

   In this episode we talked about how we got from Gamergate to the far right fascist politics we’re seeing unleashed today. Gamergate refers to a strange phenomenon that occurred in 2014, where a group of video game fans used online platforms - from Reddit to 4Chan to Craigslist - to create a harassment campaign against feminist gamemakers and critics, making tactics like doxxing and shitposting widespread. Gamergate is a signature moment in the ascendency of the new far right. We spoke with Adrienne about how Silicon Valley and its economic framework gave rise to the platforms implicated in fascist movements like Gamergate; whether we are embroiled in the normalisation of dark play; and what the Left should be doing in the face of our servitude to privatised digital infrastructure. Adrienne Massanari is an Associate Professor at the School of Communication at American University and affiliate faculty with the AU Games Center. Her research interests include digital culture, platform politics, game studies, pop culture, and gender and race online. Her most recent book, "Gaming Democracy: How Silicon Valley Leveled Up the Far Right" (MIT Press, 2024), discusses the connections between the far right, Silicon Valley, and gaming culture. She is also the author of "Participatory Culture, Community, and Play: Learning from Reddit" (Peter Lang, 2015). Against the Fascist Game is the second season of The Exploits of Play, a podcast about games and capitalism. Join host Max Haiven and producer Faye Harvey as they interview game designers, critical theorists and grassroots activists struggling with games to understand, confront and abolish the rising threat of fascism in our times. We ask questions including: how is the far-right around the world using games as platforms for ideology, recruiting and violence, both close to home and around the world? How have vicious reactionary politics emerged from a form of capitalism where most people feel trapped in an unwinnable game? What do fascism and antifascism mean today? And what role, if any do play and games have in confronting the fascist threat and creating a new world? The Exploits of Play is a production of Weird Economies, a platform for exploring the intricacies and excesses of our economic imaginaries, in cooperation with RiVAL: The ReImagining Value Action Lab. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

5. 

   5 Jun 2025TRANSCRIPT

   Played by Plutocrats with Danny Dorling, Meghna Jayanth and Max Haiven

   Geography professor Danny Dorling, game designer Meghna Jayanth, and radical imagination chair Max Haiven discuss the role of games and play in revolution, including the mechanics of Billionaires & Guillotines, in this interview episode.

6. 

   15 May 2025TRANSCRIPT

   Foul Freedoms with Alberto Toscano

   In this episode, we talked about how fascism transforms itself in and across different historical conjunctures; how the far right uses race and gender as key points of articulation and why we should be engaging with psychoanalytic theories of fascism alongside radical anti-fascist thinkers; our current moment of transition as one of systemic instability, uncertainty and reorientation; and how in the contemporary moment of resurgent fascism, migration must be thought together with carcerality, especially when deportation has become the emblem of the Trump administration. Alberto Toscano is the author of Fanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea (Verso, 2010; 2017, 2nd ed.), Cartographies of the Absolute (with Jeff Kinkle, Zero Books, 2015), La abstracción real. Filosofia, estética y capital (Palinodia, 2021), Terms of Disorder: Keywords for an Interregnum (Seagull, 2023), Late Fascism: Race, Capitalism and the Politics of Crisis (Verso, 2023), and Communism in Philosophy: Essays on Alain Badiou and Toni Negri (Brill, 2025). He is the co-editor of the 3-volume The SAGE Handbook of Marxism (with Sara Farris, Bev Skeggs and Svenja Bromberg, SAGE, 2022), Ruth Wilson Gilmore's Abolition Geography: Essays in Liberation (with Brenna Bhandar, Verso, 2022), and Georges Bataille's Critical Essays, vols. I and II (with Benjamin Noys, Seagull, 2023 and 2025). He is series editor of Seagull Essays and The Italian List for Seagull Books, and a columnist for the magazine In These Times. He has also translated the work of Antonio Negri, Alain Badiou, Franco Fortini, and Furio Jesi. Against the Fascist Game is the second season of The Exploits of Play, a podcast about games and capitalism. Join host Max Haiven and producer Faye Harvey as they interview game designers, critical theorists and grassroots activists struggling with games to understand, confront and abolish the rising threat of fascism in our times. We ask questions including: how is the far-right around the world using games as platforms for ideology, recruiting and violence, both close to home and around the world? How have vicious reactionary politics emerged from a form of capitalism where most people feel trapped in an unwinnable game? What do fascism and antifascism mean today? And what role, if any do play and games have in confronting the fascist threat and creating a new world? The Exploits of Play is a production of Weird Economies, a platform for exploring the intricacies and excesses of our economic imaginaries, in cooperation with RiVAL: The ReImagining Value Action Lab. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

7. 

   21 Apr 2025TRANSCRIPT

   Property Pieties with Luce deLire

   In this episode we talked with Luce about her latest work on digitalised tyranny. About how private property structures the terms of the contract and gives rise to ever more terms; how the far right are both breaking the rules and playing by the rules to break the game; and about the overall structure of desire across society and what it’d mean to exit the transsexual contract of libidinal intelligibility, towards a horizon of hospitality and indeterminacy, driven by joy. Luce deLire is a ship with eight sails and she lies down by the quay. As a philosopher, she publishes on the metaphysics of infinity and early modern philosophy but also on art, queer theory, anti-racism, postcolonialism, and political theory. In her performances, she embodies figures of the collective imaginary. She is currently an assistant professor at the department of philosophy at Humboldt University, Berlin. For more (including booking), see getaphilosopher.com and IG :@Luce_deLire Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

8. 

   17 Jul 2024

   Our Moves and Movements- Jay Jordan and Isa Fremeaux on playfully subverting capitalism

   What is the anti-capitalist game? For several decades, Jay Jordan and Isa Fremeaux of the game-changing Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination have been using play and games as methods of class war: from the disruptive frivolity of Reclaim the Streets marches to a Carnival Against Capitalism that shut down the London Stock Exchange; from the Climate Games that crowdsourced playful interventions against greenwashing to the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army. On the final episode of THE EXPLOITS OF PLAY we speak to Jay and Isa about their past “work” as well as their current activities, including at the ZAD: the autonomous “zone to defend” at Notre Dame de Landes, near Nantes, France, the subject of their 2021 book We Are Nature Defending Itself. Jay Jordan is co-founder of Reclaim the Streets (1995-2000) and the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army, and co-author of We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anticapitalism (Verso, 2003) and A User's Guide to Demanding the Impossible (Minor Compositions, 2011). Isabelle Fremeaux is a popular educator and action researcher. She was formerly Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at Birkbeck College London. Along with Jay Jordan, she is a coordinator of The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination. Together, they are the authors of "We Are 'Nature' Defending Itself: Entangling Art, Activism and Autonomous Zones" from Pluto Press in 2021. That book details their role in the struggle for the ZAD: an autonomous community in Western France that for decades fought back against state repression and is today a beacon of hope for radical ecological activists in that country and around the world. For full transcript and show notes please visit weirdeconomies.com. Credits: Founder and organizer of Weird Economies: Bahar Noorizadeh Host: Max Haiven Producer: Halle Frost Sound editor: Faye Harvey Sponsor: Canada Council for the Arts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

9. 

   25 Jun 2024

   The Singularity Bluff - Christian Nagler on Silicon Valley's Dangerous Dreams of Cheating Death

   What if we handed some of the most consequential decisions about the future of humanity and the planet to a bunch of game-obsessed nerds? From artificial intelligence to the future of money, from the way we find love to the way we come to know our bodies and communities, Silicon Valley has become one of the most revolutionary and transformative forces of our times. What games do they play? In this episode Christian Nagler helps us understand with a deep dive into the ideology and fantasy of the “longevity community” seeking to leverage unimaginable wealth and technological utopianism to beat death at its own game. Christian Nagler is a writer and artist. His work looks at (and performs) the imbrications of embodiment and global economics both in his everyday life and in projects like Market Fitness (http://www.artpractical.com/feature/market-fitness/), and Yoga for Adjuncts (http://artjournal.collegeart.org/?p=6503) he researches critical ethnography, political theory, and media and cultural studies at UC Berkeley. For full transcript and show notes please visit weirdeconomies.com. Credits: Founder and organizer of Weird Economies: Bahar Noorizadeh Host: Max Haiven Producer: Halle Frost Sound editor: Faye Harvey Sponsor: Canada Council for the Arts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

10. 

    4 Jun 2024

    Toyed With - Alfie Brown on the gameification of affect and love's digital futures

    In an age when our most intimate connections with others are mediated by gamified interfaces, it’s high time to revisit how the game of love became the plaything of capital. Alfie Brown joins us for episode 8 to explore the joys and horrors of the ero-tech and the burning question: can hookup apps, dating sims and thirst traps can be reclaimed for the common good? Alfie Brown is editor of "Everyday Analysis" and "Sublation Magazine". His books include Post Comedy, which is forthcoming in 2024, Dream Lovers, Capitalism and the Gamification of Relationships from 2022, Post Memes from 2019 and the PlayStation Dream World from 2017. For full transcript and show notes please visit weirdeconomies.com. Credits: Founder and organizer of Weird Economies: Bahar Noorizadeh Host: Max Haiven Producer: Halle Frost Sound editor: Faye Harvey Sponsor: Canada Council for the Arts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

11. 

    20 May 2024

    It Is What It Is - Sophie Lewis on Love Island, game shows, and the banality of capitalist eros

    On the blockbuster "reality" tv show "Love Island," an even number of conventionally attractive cis men and women compete to partner up and win the audience's affection in a spectacle that, like most of its kind, sees producers push heteronormative cliches to their absurd and humiliating limits. On this episode, theorist and author Sophie Lewis joins us to explore the show's popularity in a late capitalism era marked by pervasive "heteropessimism" and the relentless gamification of romance. Sophie Lewis is an ex-academic, freelance writer, and independent scholar with teaching affiliations at Center for Research in Feminist, Queer, and Transgender Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. In 2022, they published Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation from Verso and they have an upcoming book called Enemy Feminisms set to be published in 2025 from Haymarket Books. For full transcript and show notes please visit weirdeconomies.com. Credits: Founder and organizer of Weird Economies: Bahar Noorizadeh Host: Max Haiven Producer: Halle Frost Sound editor: Faye Harvey Sponsor: Canada Council for the Arts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

12. 

    7 May 2024

    Gaming Authority - Thiago Falcẫo on exploitation and far-right politics in the games industry

    The worldwide gaming market is estimated at $347 billion. That's a hefty chunk of change, power and influence which lies in the hands of an exceptionally few game makers primarily in the global north. How does the culture of an industry like gaming leak into the broader political sphere? Episode 6 of "The Exploits of Play" features guest Thiago Falcão who is an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Digital Media at the Federal University of Paraíba. He is the current president of the Brazilian chapter of the Digital Games Research Association - Digra, which he helped found in 2022. He researches the relationships between entertainment, video games, and neoliberal capitalism, with a broad focus on issues related to work, politics, and financialization dynamics in these media. For full transcript and show notes please visit weirdeconomies.com. Credits: Founder and organizer of Weird Economies: Bahar Noorizadeh Host: Max Haiven Producer: Halle Frost Sound editor: Faye Harvey Sponsor: Canada Council for the Arts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

13. 

    22 Apr 2024

    The Cheating Other- Gargi Bhattacharyya on how racial capitalism scams us twice

    Race and capitalism have always shaped one another, but what do we make of their relationship in an age when both systems increasingly toy with our lives in apocalyptic ways? How has the rhetoric of the cheat become part of a vicious racist reactionary politics, and what's the role of humor and fun in the struggle for a better world? Episode 5 stars guest Gargi Bhattacharyya who writes on issues of systemic injustice, racial capitalism, social reproduction, climate crisis and collective survival. She is the author of The Futures of Racial Capitalism (2024), Rethinking Racial Capitalism (2018) and Dangerous Brown Men (2008). For full transcript and show notes please visit weirdeconomies.com. Credits: Founder and organizer of Weird Economies: Bahar Noorizadeh Host: Max Haiven Producer: Halle Frost Sound editor: Faye Harvey Sponsor: Canada Council for the Arts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

14. 

    8 Apr 2024

    Frontiers of Play- Mary Flanagan on games, colonialism, and the playful imagination

    From the historic archives of 15th-century Italy to the contemporary landscape of the commercial gaming industry, this episode explores the intricate interplay of power dynamics within the realm of play with our guest Mary Flanagan. Dr. Flanagan is an artist, author, educator, and designer who pioneered the field of game research with her ideas on critical play. In this interview we dive into Dr. Flanagan's research, her books and what it takes to design and market a game today. For full transcript and show notes please visit weirdeconomies.com. Credits: Founder and organizer of Weird Economies: Bahar Noorizadeh Host: Max Haiven Producer: Halle Frost Sound editor: Faye Harvey Sponsor: Canada Council for the Arts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

15. 

    25 Mar 2024

    All Against All- Tom Boland on our modern gladiators and the real world hunger games

    Episode 3 of "The Exploits of Play" with guest Dr. Tom Boland explores how the game changes the player and how this fits into western literature's beloved 'character arc' as well as the new age obsession with personal transformation. Tom Boland is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University College Cork. His main research interests are in critique, culture, unemployment and welfare though recently Dr. Boland has been interested in the proliferance of dystopian games media such as The Hunger Games and “Squid Game”. For full transcript and show notes please visit weirdeconomies.com. Credits: Founder and organizer of Weird Economies: Bahar Noorizadeh Host: Max Haiven Producer: Halle Frost Sound editor: Faye Harvey Sponsor: Canada Council for the Arts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

16. 

    11 Mar 2024

    The Game at War with the World- S.M. Amadae on the powers behind the prisoners' dilemma

    Held close to the hearts of many of today's major decision makers, fundamentally believed by most politicians and business leaders as well as the gospel truth by many of the people designing software in Silicon Valley– the influence of game theory is difficult to underestimate. Because it masks itself in the language of reason, rationality and zero sum mathematical decision making, it's very difficult to challenge those people who hold this theory as truth about human nature. In this episode we interview Dr. S.M. Amadae whose work over the last decades has set out to deconstruct game theory by offering us a really incredible intellectual history of this concept and design new frameworks for moving us forward. For full transcript and show notes please visit weirdeconomies.com. Credits: Founder and organizer of Weird Economies: Bahar Noorizadeh Host: Max Haiven Producer: Halle Frost Sound editor: Faye Harvey Sponsor: Canada Council for the Arts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

17. 

    4 Mar 2024

    Conspiracy Plays - Hugh Davies on the temptations of alternate reality

    Episode 1 of "The Exploits of Play" is an interview with Dr. Hugh Davies who is an artist, curator, and researcher. Working across digital media, academic scholarship, and creative practice, he explores the social, cultural, and political dimensions of art and technology. He’s written two books on game culture and ethnographies of play and is currently a research fellow with a focus on Chinese Platform Studies at RMIT in Melbourne. "The Exploits of Play" is a 10-episode, interview-driven podcast hosted by Max Haiven and produced by Halle Frost for Weird Economies. We examine what play may have lured us into participating in these games we know we cannot win and where on the fringes play is a tool of resistance changing the game itself. For full transcript and show notes please visit weirdeconomies.com. Credits: Founder and organizer of Weird Economies: Bahar Noorizadeh Host: Max Haiven Producer: Halle Frost Sound editor: Faye Harvey Sponsor: Canada Council for the Arts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

Inside a recent episode

Virtual Palestine with Omar Zahzah

Published 1 Oct 2025 · Transcript excerpt

[…] Herman, and even proceeding figures like Herbert Schiller who was really one of the first scholars to write about the important work that media does for imperialism, right? And, you know, really distinguishing the question of media dominance from one just of kind of, we can say, a kind of economic saturation of the market to the actual political work that media does ideologically sort of paving the way for various forms of imperial and colonial domination. And often, vis -a -vis soft power as well, right? So creating this sense, you know, for example, Schiller was writing about Latin America, this idea of creating this image that the rest of the world would aspire to in areas where we also do want to capture the market, right? […]

Who has been a guest on Weird Economies presents "The Exploits of Play"

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Danny Dorling
• Meghna Jayanth
• Max Haiven

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

10 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

34 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 24 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

19

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

71

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