As we discuss race in cyberspace, many sources, hashtags, and videos come to mind. Theresa M. Senft and Safiya Umoja Noble wrote a very insightful article about the touchy, complicated, but substantial concept of race and how it is ideologically understood, and how the notion has progressed within the networked world. As an anthropology major, the concept of race has been addressed many times in lecture and discussion; Senft and Noble discuss how it now refers to nationality, religion, ancestry, class, and biological categories, to say the least we really don’t have any clue on how properly digest these socially constructed divides. It is important to state how this concept shapes individual thinking, and effect how humans are being treated. There is a hope that we are now in a post-racial era, as those differences have become invisible, however this hope is almost impossible. We live in an ocular world: our vision is the center of how we digest and understand the word. Every view is convert, coded, and cultural. If anything I believe our world has become more visual, which highlight the differences by segregating behaviors of those who, as the authors say, are undereducated, under motivated, and underemployed. But what can we do this “othering” that occurs with every glance.
One important source of media that was addressed was the use of videos to embrace a culture. These videos use humor to bring light to issues, and hopefully progress the way we categorize and understand other cultures. I know a gentleman name Todrick Hall, who graduated from my high school, and also directed a play I was involved in. He creates videos that use comedic relief to hopefully defuse “racial” differences. The authors say that many of these videos are made to gain back the misplaced superiority, people want to not be labelled but instead create their own description. This parody music video is one of my favorites, and within days had reached record numbers. The video has transformed the culture from the original video, and was filmed right in LA, with the last shot being filmed in my high schools theatre. It addresses many stereotypes that revolve around black culture. Please enjoy Toddy’s Ghetto Gangman Style!
This video seems to address race in a similar way as “Sh*t White Girls Say to Black Girls” did. I am really interested in the way people that make these videos use humor to point out problems with racial stereotypes. Does this video only work because the main person in it is black? I don’t think it would get the same message across if the person was of another race because it would be seen as racist.
One important thing to remember about the use of word “ghetto” is that it’s not just racialized, but is also inherently class-oriented. When people mock aspects of “ghetto” culture, there making fun not of black culture as a whole, but working class black culture in particular. As such, parodies of “ghetto”-ness tend to feed into a classist discourse about people from lower socio-economic classes.
In addition to “ghetto”, phrases like “from the hood” and “ratchet” also seem associated with the black community. I hate to admit I find the videos amusing, but I do. In most cases, I don’t even have these stereotypes of black people to begin with- but watching the videos make me think that is how they are. For instance, this video is how I learnt what the meaning of “ratchet” was supposed to be:
She Ratchet video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3Da2_NnMaU
On the other hand, though, I think there have been so many complaints about inaccurate representation in media that people take what they see with a grain of salt. It’s humor at the least, and cultural critique at best.