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5 Hybrid Assignment 06

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% Natasha Wong completed

I’m not sure if I’m the only one that had difficulty with this reading, but I am going to take a stab at what I believe is the point that Terranova is trying to make. She basically believes that subcultural movements have helped capitalism become what it is. My understanding of subcultures is that it is a type of movement that aims to fight against exploitation that results from capitalism. I think Terranova is trying to explain subcultures as being “sellouts” because instead of acting in the interest of the community, they inevitably succumb to capitalism. Terranova believes that capitalism is so entrenched in our society that it is almost impossible to have subculture and capitalism act independently. In order for these subcultures to thrive, they must give up some of their principals and do things that benefit the capitalist, which in turn benefits the subculture.
The example Terranova uses in her argument is small designer shops in fashion, which she says have been “voluntarily channeled and controversially structured within capitalist business practices.” From the reading, the example I thought of was the controversy that has surrounded African American hair for decades. Madam CJ Walker became a self-made millionaire by developing and marketing hair products for black women. Her success was in the “hot comb” which gave African Americans straight, soft hair which was more culturally acceptable at the time. Currently, there is a “natural hair movement” among the black community that encourages women to embrace their natural hair. As a result there has been a rise in hair shampoos, conditioners, etc. designed for “natural hair”. It seems that despite the subcultural movement, capitalism will always press forward and find a way to exploit these movements, and they succeed because the subcultures fight hard for their cause, and so they are unable to see how their cause still serves the capitalist.

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% Jessie Salfen completed

Terranova explains that is not that capitalism is swooping down on subcultures to exploit their efforts for profit, rather that once a subculture that has been incorporated, it is at the end of it’s creative cultural development. Though the subculture was originally volunteered into the creative commons, once it is mainstream it is no longer an organic development by the persons who initially created it and is at this point a product adopted by mass culture that is marketed and sold. The best way to understand what Terranova means by saying that such movements are not appropriated by capital from the outside it that culture cannot be created in a vacuum, therefore since capital exists and culture exists (or once it is created) it should be understood that all creative culture is created in the realm of capital. Though just because a subculture is created and capital exists, this in no way guarantees that all culture will be incorporated into the mainstream of capital, rather that everything created has the potential to be incorporated because the platform exists for exposure of culture to lead to the path of capital. In other words, capital practices can adopt a subculture but a subculture does not exist in a world without capital.

Subcultures sustain and grow on the idea of Terranova’s definition of digital economy in which social and cultural knowledge is pooled and shared, in effect its own type of labor not for monetary gains but personal interest in sharing and the growth of cultural industry. However, as this collective knowledge (the subculture) is shared and developed it has the potential to turn into a monetary value and then adopted into the mainstream culture and then turned into forms of capital. Once a subculture, or element of a subculture, is incorporated into the mainstream the element is no longer part of its original cultural development and has transformed into a new phase of culture. Terranova believes that this last mainstream phase of collective labor is not so much “selling out” as it is a transformation because of cultural experimentation, a new element of our digital history.

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% Dree-el Simmons completed

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.

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% Simone Glover completed

 

I believe that Terranova characterizes the relationship of subcultural movements to capitalism as one big global conglomerate which as she described “local cultures are picked up and distributed globally, thus contributing to cultural hybridization or cultural imperialism” In other words, subcultural movements, though may have their own interests that operate in the existing social order, it is for the most part an incorporated operation that through labor, is all about financial gain through capitalist business systems. As a result, while social movements are conceived as coming together to form action, there is still conflict when capitalist are allowed to come from the outside to break through the system’s compatibility boundaries.

 

In my opinion, it is unfortunate that subcultural movements would “sell-out” and lose all focus to the purpose of the movement to begin with, in order to sell products or services.  Big businesses are having their pockets stuffed and persuaded to showcase the subcultural member’s products and goods, while changing the cultural labor.  Free labor is being produced in subcultural movements as the case in a digital society.

 

In the article by Terranova, Free “Free labor: Producing culture for the digital economy.”Social text 18.2 (2000): 33-58.she explains that: “These events point to a necessary backlash against the glamorization of digital labor, which highlights its continuities with the modern sweatshop and points to the increasing degradation of knowledge work. Yet the question of labor in a “digital economy” is not so easily dismissed as an innovative development of the familiar logic of capitalist exploitation. The NetSlaves are not simply a typical form of labor on the Internet; they also embody a complex relation to labor that is widespread in late capitalist societies”.

 

Therefore, what Terranova means is; its not fitting for subcultural movements to incorporate with capitalist ventures due to the fact that such movements are being taken advantage of by way of “selling their souls to the devil” while trying to move their system up, yet paying the cost through capitalist return.

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% elizabeth completed

Due by midnight Tuesday, October 20th (350-400 words).

In her article “Free Labor,” Tiziana Terranova (2015:52-53) argues, “[s]ubcultural movements have stuffed the pockets of multinational capitalism for decades.” How does Terranova characterize the relationship of subcultural movements to capitalism? Using an example (either from Terranova’s essay or your own) explain what you think Terranova means when she argues that such movements are not appropriated by capital from the outside.