* P\u00e9rez-Rodr\u00edguez, Paula. “Instant Writing and the .Txtual Condition: Digital Performativity, the Vernacular, and the Crisis of Relationality”. Culture and Dialogue 13.2 (2025): 291-314. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1163\/24683949-12340148 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
An uncanny “.txtual condition” (Kirschenbaum) defines the cultural norms of social interaction in digital societies. This article traces its genealogy-from the mechanization of writing and the advent of word processing to the vernacular creativity of the Web 2.0-and examines its transformation into the toxic culture of instant writing. Enabled by the portability of smartphones and the design of social media platforms and apps, instant writing has become the core performative practice of a digital sphere where corporate-driven values prevail, generating a vast, unpaid electronic writing labor carried out by techno-dependent users. Within this regime, self and social scrutiny and antagonism are prioritized over cooperation, producing a relationality in which the textual simulates to fulfill social needs while feeding platform economies. Toxicity operates here as a double bind: both an infrastructural condition of platforms and a discursive tool mobilized by users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n