LAUSR

ABSTRACT A paradox of drawing attention to violations of one’s privacy is that one must publicly detail what has happened. The targeted individual (TI) community is sustained by this very tension, voluminously producing media detailing what they believe is state surveillance. “TI” is a self-descriptor used by members of an online community to denote when a person believes they personally are being subject to organized harassment. Through treating the TI community as exemplifying broader patterns of self-publication on digital platforms, I argue that one explanation for continued investment in digital platforms is that it provides users with a sense of possession over their identities, allowing them to present themselves as they believe they are desired by the Other. This is achieved through an analysis of several examples of TI media grounded in the Lacanian concepts of the yieldable object, anxiety, and metonymy. The yieldable object refers to a media object that has been elevated to a status that is coextensive with the subject. Following my analysis, I suggest that scholars should consider adopting the yieldable object when assessing self-publication on platforms.