internet manifestos are not written only for humans ***** internet manifestos are not always serious ***** internet manifestos are not always countercultural ***** internet manifestos are not something else ***** internet manifestos are not self-fulfilling prophecies ***** internet manifestos are not bestsellers ***** internet manifestos are not about internet ***** internet manifestos are not fiction ***** internet manifestos are not non-fiction ***** internet manifestos are not only manifestos ***** internet manifestos are not wish-lists ***** internet manifestos are not always read ***** internet manifestos are not just pixels ***** internet manifestos are not lost in cyber space ***** internet manifestos are not up for sale ***** internet manifestos are not comforting ***** internet manifestos are not the end of the world ***** internet manifestos are not to laugh at ***** internet manifestos are not written only by humans ***** internet manifestos are not over

Manifestos and Their Zeitgeist

– Some thoughts by Maria Anastasia Scharff (made possible through fruitful discussions with all of us)

    Throughout our research, we often found ourselves returning to the following questions: What specific cultural and political circumstances are required to write manifestos? And who exactly writes manifestos? Let us first look at the latter question. The act of writing a manifesto must be led by a significant amount of confidence, a feeling of not only having identified and understood something, but also having a clear opinion on how things need to change. This confidence of knowing how things should go is often attributed to men. Thus, it is not surprising that most manifestos are, indeed, written by men. Now, we are not only talking about manifestos, we are specifically discussing internet manifestos. Discourse about the internet is yet another field which is, surprise, dominated by male voices. It therefore seems intriguing to look at cyberfeminist manifestos. These manifestos are not always written by women*, but they circle around feminist causes within the Internet. In fact, we have identified very few cyberfeminist manifestos which were written by men.

    So, let's face our initial question: What specific cultural and political circumstances are required to write manifestos? We came to the conclusion that there are two most prominent reasons. First, there could be a new invention, which hasn’t been prominent in discourse yet. Due to this, there is hope to turn this invention into something positive, into something that would support or help the cyberfeminist cause. Secondly, there could be something that has established itself over time, like, for example, the fact that there are not many women* working in the tech industry, which the manifesto writers notice and want to change. Therefore, a concrete problem is addressed.

    However, there is something that is crucial to either possibility. There needs to be a creative force and the room for imagination. Both negative and positive circumstances can create such an environment. What is safe to say is that it is hard to force this creativity, this will, to write a cyberfeminist manifesto. And this underlines why the topic of cyberfeminist manifestos is manifold and hard to grasp.

    We did notice that not many cyberfeminist manifestos are being written right now. This led us to ask: What does this lack of cyberfeminist manifestos say about our time? We did not find a clear and satisfying answer, so we invite you to think with us. In general, nowadays, there seems to be a sense of hopelessness and despair, and a feeling that we, especially women*, are unable to influence the evolution of technology. With AI getting more and more popular, it seems like the general feeling is that everything happening can't be influenced by us anyway. Especially for women* and cyberfeminism, this does seem sad. Why not take recent developments of AI and try to fold or force it into something that would inform and support the cyberfeminist cause? Why not write a manifesto about that? Is there a crisis of utopian thinking?

    We also identified another shift: Rather than actively demanding something (and writing a cyberfeminist manifesto about it!), people seem to step back to try to analyse and understand the cyberfeminist discourse. These people are not necessarily cyberfeminists themselves. This idea is supported by the fact that, although we found a lot of discourse about cyberfeminist manifestos, we found relatively few manifestos.

    But maybe the cyberfeminist crisis also lies in the term: manifesto. Perhaps the term is used less frequently in feminist discourse because it is perceived as arrogant? Or because it is informed by a male tradition of writing? Is manifesto a word that is incompatible with feminist ideas today?

    To sum it all up, well, I will not sum it all up. I would like to demand: Let's write cyberfeminist manifestos! The word manifesto is a game in itself, and there is no clear format for a manifesto; its use is open to interpretation. This also creates an opportunity. Let's use it!

    Cite as: Maria Anastasia Scharff. (2026). Manifestos and Their Zeitgeist. Internet Manifestos Seminar Blog.