Eva Illouz is a sociologist born in 1961 in Fez, Morocco. She is a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Faculty Director at Paris School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences. Illouz’s research explores how capitalism shapes emotions, love, and culture. In this interview with Germany weekly Die Zeit, she talks about dating apps, modern capitalism and tribal identities.
DIE ZEIT: Ms. Illouz, the word “hope” is everywhere these days — in politics, in climate debates, in self-help books. Is that a good thing?
Eva Illouz: It can be like a narcotic that convinces us things will get better even if we do nothing.
For the latest news & views from every corner of the world, Worldcrunch Today is the only truly international newsletter. Sign up here.
A kind of antidote to despair?
We don’t really know if hope is a cure — or a kind of evil itself. In Greek mythology, when Pandora opened the box and all the evils escaped into the world, the last thing left was Elpis, hope. The Greeks had a complicated relationship with the future — they didn’t necessarily want to know what it held. Predictions were usually grim. It was probably Christianity that first turned hope into a belief in something good.
Donald Trump and Barack Obama both used hope, the one as a backward-looking utopia, the other as a vision of progress.
Hope is an emotional way of claiming the future, which makes it a religious feeling, but also a deeply political one. Even in Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign, the hope for progress is actually stronger than the longing for the past. Anyone who offers hope to a defeated electorate gains a kind of spiritual power. Those who make the future feel imaginable can motivate people to act.
Hope, a business model
Is hope also a good business model? It seems like people who talk about hope use it to sell self-improvement, coaching, or the search for the “right life.”
Positive psychology, self-help culture, modern spirituality — all the things we pour time and money into these days are based on hope. Capitalism couldn’t function without hope, because we’re always chasing a better version of ourselves, a better job, a better partner. Hope and confidence have become essential parts of the modern way of life. Dating apps are part of this too — they’re economic hope machines.
And we, the users, are like bargain hunters, looking for the best deal?
I’ve been pessimistic about dating apps from the start. They turn sexual encounters into a product you can acquire and discard. Now we’re seeing a backlash. People are quitting platforms like Bumble and Tinder, disillusioned. Bumble is trying to win them back with artificial intelligence, promising to help users find real love. But love needs a social infrastructure. In the past, that was religion. Today it’s consumer culture.
Love needs a social infrastructure. In the past, that was religion. Today it’s consumer culture.
Even in the past, love was tied to money, through things like dowries or trousseaus.
That’s true. And today, whether someone is middle class or working class, it’s hard to imagine a relationship that doesn’t involve shared consumption. Vacations, gifts, Valentine’s Day rituals — these material things aren’t love, but they’re the framework that makes it possible.
Techno-emotional commodities
In your 2012 book Why Love Hurts, you introduced the term “emotional commodities.” Why are emotions so marketable?
Mainly because they’re cheap to sell. If I say, “Come to me for advice and you’ll be happier,” I haven’t invested anything. I don’t need machinery or technology or capital in the traditional sense. Since the 1960s, capitalism has begun to tap into the self. The self has become a kind of machine that produces itself — through change, self-improvement, and so on. It costs very little to fuel this process but brings huge profits. Once, you needed pipelines for oil. Today, people are the pipeline.
In your new book The Future of Feelings, you show how technology, messaging, and emojis shape our emotional lives.
The emoji industry has created an entirely new emotional language. Think about the laughing-crying emoji. There’s no word for that in any language, but billions of people understand it. Emojis don’t just replace words — they displace them.
A U.S. survey found that 32% of Gen Z have ended a relationship using an emoji.
But at the same time, the digital world has also created tons of new, unique expressions!
A U.S. survey found that 32% of Gen Z have ended a relationship using an emoji. Did you know that young people are making fewer phone calls? They even find phone calls annoying. Even though texting takes longer, they see it as the better way to communicate. Today, 92% of internet users use emojis. Five billion emojis are sent every day, along with countless stickers and gifs. Companies make serious money from them.
Why are these images so effective in digital communication?
Emojis and gifs take emotions and turn them into standardized, marketable chunks. I call them techno-emotional commodities. Techno-capitalism makes unprecedented profits by mining our emotional lives and turning them into something addictive — although “addiction” might not be the right word.
The smartphone is like a part of your body now, a virtual limb.
Why not?
Can you really be addicted to yourself? The smartphone is like a part of your body now, a virtual limb. I forgot mine recently and it felt like I’d lost an arm. I was panicking. Totally absurd. But it shows how deeply technology is embedded in our emotions.
You also include video games among techno-emotional commodities.
Yes, because they create strong emotional identification. But they’re also the model for AI chatbots like Replika.
Replika is a Silicon Valley app that offers virtual friends or partners. You chat with them, and they learn to respond emotionally.
Exactly. They simulate what used to be real human connection — and turn it into a service you pay for. Some people actually form relationships with their Replikas.
An antidote promise
You’ve also described mindfulness apps as techno-emotional goods.
While researching the book, I found more than a thousand meditation apps on the Google Play Store. Headspace, Calm, Smiling Mind — they all offer guided meditation sessions and other exercises designed to turn negative emotions into positive ones. They promise to protect users from stress by helping them unplug from tech. But they also encourage people to keep using their phones. They’re sold as an antidote to tech culture, while being part of it.
When emotions are packaged like products — what’s left that’s authentic?
I’m not sure myself. Is an ultra-Orthodox Jew more authentic than someone like me, a consumer who shops at Zara? Both identities are constructed. Both serve self-interest.
If emotions are cheap to produce, like on Instagram, does that make them fake?
No. Whether I cry at Disneyland or while reading Tolstoy, the tears are real. What changes is the cultural value of the trigger: one is considered high art, the other kitsch. But the emotional intensity can be the same.
Do we underestimate or overestimate the power of emotions today?
It’s not just about emotions. Our entire sense of self has become a productive force, and no one seems to notice. Every swipe, every heartbeat we track, every late-night Google search for “Why am I unhappy?” — we even underestimate all of that.
Our egos fuel billion-dollar industries.
So it’s not just our labor or attention being exploited, but also our loneliness, our love, our fear?
Yes. Our egos fuel billion-dollar industries. We’re the living batteries that power their business models.
A disappointment business
You say that disappointment has become the driving force of modern life. Can you explain that?
It’s productive in the sense that it keeps us going. Let’s say I’m fifty. My marriage is disappointing, my job isn’t fulfilling, my whole life feels like a dull ache.
So what do you do?
I go to therapy. I book a wellness retreat. Maybe I take some recreational drugs or pick up a new hobby, like painting or sculpting, to feel creative again. That’s what I mean by a productive emotion — it keeps us endlessly working on ourselves instead of questioning the system.
The real achievement of capitalism is that it turns our disappointment with ourselves into a cycle of productivity.
But isn’t there constant questioning? At protests, in newspapers, in universities?
The real achievement of capitalism is that it turns our disappointment with ourselves into a cycle of productivity. Back in the 16th century, people had no idea what a king’s life looked like. Today we’re constantly bombarded with images of success, and told at the same time that we’re failing. The system keeps us working and consuming, whether to ease our suffering or to create emotional highs in the first place.
With so much inequality and frustration, why isn’t there a revolution? Why is everyone just adjusting their shopping carts at Temu or maxing out their credit cards?
Because things are just good enough to make us believe they could get better. Hope keeps the engine running.
Bumbling — Photo: Official Facebook account
From universalism to polarization
You write that modern life doesn’t just make us uncomfortable, it “explodes” our emotions. Why?
Our times are explosive because institutions like democracy and the welfare state are falling apart, while politics is turning into a pressure valve for rage and resentment. Something fundamental has changed in how we think.
What exactly?
In recent decades, we’ve shifted focus from universal human rights to specific group rights. When every citizen places their religious, sexual, or ethnic identity above all else, we lose the common language needed for shared projects. Democracies were built on universalism. When tribalism takes hold inside those structures, it overwhelms them.
When every citizen places their religious, sexual, or ethnic identity above all else, we lose the common language needed for shared projects.
And social media accelerates this anger and polarization.
Polarization means clinging to absolute moral certainties — good versus evil. We’re in a period of hyper-moralization. Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, see each other not just as opponents but as threats. That’s also what makes ideas go viral on social media: moral outrage, the sense that something sacred is in danger. People spend all day venting their anger, and politicians use that anger strategically.
Does that worry you?
As a European, what worries me most is that the model of solidarity built through the welfare state might be ending, or going through a deep crisis.
Let’s end where we started: hope. Is there still some left?
Real, helpful hope isn’t passive waiting. It’s organized rebellion. Just look at the climate movement. We don’t wait for disaster. We act — on our own and together — to try and stop it. Hope can hardly ever be completely lost to humanity. We have to remind ourselves that crises can be overcome.
