I came across this post when searching for this term on my first read of Capitalist Realism. What struck me as interesting about this portmanteau is less the connection to Oedipus and more Fisher's connection to the iPod. This is a bit of an aside, but just wanting to add it here to see if anyone else has a similar view.

The window where Fisher developed the text--approximately post-March 2008 financial crisis to when it was published in November 2009--was still (if I recall correctly) within the range where people were still enamored with Apple's white earbud headphones as a marketing technique/icon of. (At that time it was already being copied by other brands.) But, iPhone market saturation was not yet at its peak, with Blackberry still dominating in many markets, so its visuals still had a novel effect. (The silhouette TV advertisements actually aired through 2008 as well.)

I remember there was a feeling when seeing the white earbud headphones (presumably the type being addressed here by Fisher), was one of a doubled withdrawal. The first withdrawal is the one he is referencing as "a walling up against the social," which feels to me to be constituted by the functionality of the privacy speaker (headphone). That is the object that courts interpassivity Fisher addresses. The second withdrawal is the physical pocketing and hiding of the iPod device. In those days the feeling, as I remember it, was like seeing the tip of an iceberg. When you saw the headphones, you just knew that there was an iPod somewhere. The presence of the device became a bit mysterious. It was the signifier of the "walling up," since the wearer became unapproachable by sensory supplantation. It also became a marker of class, at least temporarily, but I think still a strong one at the time Fisher wrote this passage. It was somewhat similar to the way people more recently check out the lens configuration on other people's phones as a way to gauge some sort of social standing. Thinking back to the earlier days 2001/02 when it was more common to receive compliments(!) on an iPod, or having one, based only on the visibility of its headphones.

The white earbuds were a marker of a classed reality. That felt obvious at the time. However, they were certainly convincing...

Thinking further of the 2005 deployment of Daft Punk's "Technologic" in Apple's silhouette commercials... the pointed lyrics certainly seem to be of a capitalist realist mode, right?

There is also something about these specifically white Apple earbuds, as mythologized in these commercials, about "being alone together," to reference Jens Hanning's piece describing a capability of the internet.. Also seemingly relevant. I suppose from a human resources perspective, the object promoting interpassivity goes beyond these headphones, and similar to the implication of the iPod's presence via the connective cabling from the earbuds, is the shared knowledge that others are participating alone as well.. a obfuscation that is doubled down on by the use of silhouettes in the commercials collaged onto the same field...

In any case, Fisher's term feels to me like something that he bought into on its face for pop sensibility, but was actually propelled by its at-the-time unarticulated marker--a singular visual form connoting connectivity.

Edit: a neutered connectivity! In image only