The Guilty Feminist Army

A Podcast For a Refreshed Politics of Feminism

Abstract

In this paper, I discuss the affective potential of laughter in the hugely popular comedy podcast series; The Guilty Feminist. Specifically, I explore how the sounds of laughter – as disseminated by the podcast – can lead to explosions of emotion in the public sphere; setting the body in motion and leading to new ways of thinking, feeling and being. While these public explosions of emotion can be transgressive, I postulate that they can also relieve some of the tension created by the negative affects swirling around feminism, which, according to Ahmed, “is always assumed to be bringing others down” (Ahmed, 2010:65). Using Guattari’s ideas on the production of subjectivation, I argue that these explosions can intensify the emergence of a global, intersectional feminist community, provoking a consideration of how podcasts such as The Guilty Feminist could extend our understanding of the use of technology and online activism within contemporary feminisms.