I'm Sorry You Feel That Way

“Negra brilliantly analyzes the transformation of customer service alongside its affective and mediated dimensions. Extensively researched and deeply original.”–Laurie Ouellette, author of Lifestyle TV“Negra’s comprehensive and unflinching account of the toxic world of customer service is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the intersection of culture, technology, and neoliberalism at the present moment. A cultural studies tour de force.”–Anna McCarthy, author of The Citizen Machine“Once, the customer was always right. Now, the customer is always defeated, trapped in endless loops of automation and algorithmic indifference. In the supposed age of connectivity and frictionless convenience, our common experience is frustration: the indignities of trying, and failing, to reach a human in the machine. This incisive book finally explains why today’s consumer experience feels so maddening–and why seeking agency in systems designed to deflect us has proven so futile–revealing the hidden architectures of power that shape these encounters. It brilliantly decodes and offers the conceptual clarity we’ve needed to understand and more effectively contest the everyday humiliations of consumer life under digital capitalism.”–Anna Watkins Fisher, author of The Play in the System

Diane Negra is Professor of Film Studies and Screen Culture at University College Dublin. A member of the Royal Irish Academy, she is the author, editor or co-editor of fourteen books.