Abstract
In this essay, I analyze the literary movement Alt-Lit by situating it within recent critical work on consumer culture. I argue that the movement can contribute to our understanding of the experience of an increasingly internet-mediated and algorithmically intensified consumer culture. Through an analysis of some major Alt-Lit works, principally Megan Boyle’s Liveblog [2018, Tyrant Books] and Tao Lin’s Taipei [2013, Canongate Books], I suggest that Alt-Lit exhibits an aesthetic of itemization that attempts to reconcile the endless flow of data, but ultimately fails to find any redemption in this. This failure is an important part of the Alt-Lit poetic. Further, I argue that this is explained by their experience of the world as a streaming of consciousness. I connect my analysis to contemporary consumer research on the digital self and the dividual to argue that the failure in Alt-Lit can be seen as a response to the impossibility of a dividual phenomenology.