62 I go on to conclude: Boyd’s theory of “prefigurative intervention” offers a constructive direction, stating that “Many of us spend so much time trying to stop bad things from happening that we rarely take the time to sketch out how things could be better (…) Prefigurative interventions seek to address that imbalance” (Boyd 2012: 39). Brandalism, DDoSecrets and The Yes Men briefly stage alternative relationships to public space, information and collective authorship, as Boyd claims that “creating a lived experience of the change you seek (…) is the best way to break through cynicism, stimulate our political imaginations” (Boyd 2012: 41), explaining how hacktivism’s aesthetic dimension matters. A subverted advert, leaked email chain or highly comedic hoax statement gives the audience a temporary experience of a world in which institutions can be talked back to, with the reclamation of public space and corporate speech stripped of its monopoly over appearance, subverting the world in which “group pressure and computational certainty replace politics and democracy” (Zuboff 2019: 19). This prefigurative log- ic aligns with Srnicek’s analysis of platform monopolisation, arguing that “more users beget more users, which leads to platforms having a natural tendency towards monopolisation” (Srnicek 2017: 30), as if platform capitalism centralises social life through network effects, hacktivism and culture jamming create alternative circuits of attention, however fragile. Boyd’s statement of supplying “a fragment of something visionary, desirable, and just beyond the realm of the possible” (Boyd 2012: 41), illuminate hacktivist aesthetics are strongest when they offer a glimpse of another arrangement, rather than merely denouncing the existing one. Thus, I believe that hacktivism is the modern machete, an ordinary tool made politically significant by collectivist movement. The wider performance of global capital is interrupted most powerfully when hacktivism combines exposure with aesthetic reconfiguration, removing institutions’ hegemony over public space, as Zuboff insists, “If the digital future is to be our home, then it is we who must make it so” (Zuboff 2019: 19). Anonymous (2008) Message to Scientology. Available at: https://www.you- tube.com/watch?v=JCbKv9yiLiQ Accessed 26th August, 2026. Best, Emma (2021) “Hacktivism, Leaktivism and the Future”, Available at: https://emma.best/2021/03/23/hacktivism-leaktivism-and-the-future/ Ac- cessed 26th August, 2026. Boyd, Andrew (2012). Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution. New York: OR Books.
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