Buy Now, Pay Later technologies and the gamification of debt in the financial lives of young people

Steven Threadgold, Barrie Shannon, Adriana Haro, Julia Cook, Kate Davies, Julia Coffey, David Farrugia, Benjamin Matthews, Joshua Healy and Roger Burrows

Journal of Cultural Economy, 2025, vol. 18, issue 1, 52-67

Abstract: In many countries Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) services have rapidly become a pervasive option to pay for consumer products both online and instore. Under-regulated and specifically marketed at young people, BNPL services use gamified and social media-like features to create frictionless user interfaces that supposedly resonate with the way young people engage online and in digital spaces, producing specific financialised subjectivities. In this article, we draw upon Sianne Ngai’s theory of the gimmick to analyse young people’s experiences with these products within an Australian context. Importantly, we emphasise how engagement with BNPL services feels and the many ambivalences and antinomies this surfaces around the blurry lines between production and consumption, and the precarious economic positions of many young people. We contribute to research on the financialisation of everyday life and the consumption of credit by analysing the everyday practices of young people’s indebted subjectivities within a public discourse that positions youth as financially irresponsible while debt is ubiquitous and unavoidable for all but the most privileged.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17530350.2024.2346210 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jculte:v:18:y:2025:i:1:p:52-67

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RJCE20

DOI: 10.1080/17530350.2024.2346210

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Cultural Economy is currently edited by Michael Pryke, Joe Deville, Tony Bennett, Liz McFall and Melinda Cooper

More articles in Journal of Cultural Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().