Hybrid #6 – Response on Terranova
My take on this rather complexly worded and laid out style of this reading, Terranova seems to basically be saying that, these unique aspects of our cultural heritage seem to always find a way of meeting capitalism and eventually commodification, in its inspirational expressions of our creative work. I understand that to mean that, as we go about our lives, doing the things that we do online and off, it is essentially our collective nature to interpret that which we are familiar with in new ways and forms, then eventually, presenting it to others…where at some point, it moves completely from the privately held to the public traded. As an example of this, I look back to my own culture. I can clearly recognize the patterns of appropriation of cultural forms into the collective identity by listening to the contemporary musical expressions or by looking at the world of beauty & fashion.
The Black, or African-American culture has greatly influenced our collective identity. Popular music of today, has in its roots, that of Jazz, Blues, Gospel – all forms that were distinctly unique to the culture by which they were produced. And now, the so-called “Hip-Hop” culture, has become a socially acceptable way of self expression collectively. Whereas once, the Afro was seen as a negative and distinct cultural characteristic, it is now another cultural appropriation into the collective beauty standard. Or how about the bold, graphic patterns and colors inspired by/influenced from Africa that we see in magazines and on the runways. Therefore, it is but a matter of time that this same phenomena would occur in our online/Internet collective identity. The more that we authentically share of ourselves in a myriad of ways, those currents begin to flow from the depths and emerge to influence the surface.
