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

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.