BETWEEN DIGITAL IRONY AND ANALOG VULNERABILITY: METAMODERNIST OSCILLATIONS IN PATRICIA LOCKWOOD’S NOVEL “NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THIS”

Abstract

The article examines Patricia Lockwood’s novel No One Is Talking About This (2021) within the framework of metamodernist theory. The study aims to identify and interpret the metamodernist oscillations between digital irony and analog vulnerability in the novel’s structure as a specific form of interaction between algorithmically organized digital experience («the portal») and the experience of corporeality that resists digitization. The research methodology is based on a combination of metamodernist theory, which describes the contemporary cultural condition as an oscillation between modernist enthusiasm and postmodern irony, with posthumanist and affect theory. The study employs textual, interpretive, and conceptual analysis, positioning the novel as a complex model of post-digital subjectivity. The novelty of the work lies in introducing the concept of «analog vulnerability» as an analytical category to describe experiences that evade algorithmic processing and digital representation. The metamodernist model of oscillation is systematically applied to Lockwood’s novel, allowing for its interpretation as the simultaneity and interpenetration of digital irony and analog vulnerability. The genetic mutation (Proteus syndrome) is interpreted as a «glitch» (a productive failure) that disrupts the system of digital rationality within «the portal» and restores the subject’s sense of embodiment, opening space for affect, empathy, and existential experience. The conclusions demonstrate that Lockwood’s novel represents a metamodernist model of subjectivity in which digital irony and analog vulnerability do not oppose each other but exist in a state of constant oscillation. Consequently, a new type of sensibility emerges, characteristic of the post-digital era, where affectivity does not eliminate irony but integrates it as an inherent component of experience.