Tag_7: Gamespace, Race, Close cultures

In the world of Youtube, there is a whole lotta lovin' and hatin' goin on! (A blogger)

A number of videos made by users that are producers / reproducers, consumers (prosumers) reproduce the national stereotypes and the war tactics composing a net video-war. The content of these videos is not limited only within the nationalistic war dithyrambs by the opposing sides, but goes further by tackling issues of immigration, identity, sexism, religion, and history including every kind of myth or historicity that has been produced not only in countries as for example Greece and Turkey but also in western European countries or in China and Taiwan and so on.

What once was perceived as politics, labour and economy in other words the constitutional elements of the nation state and its culture, now in the gamespace of Youtube is reassigned as image and information. The rapacious spirit of financial capital nourishes various constellations of close cultures, that in the frame context of the ideology of capitalism is called "variety of ways of living". We know from the field of cultural studies, that if the other is beyond my comprehension it is not because we are culturally "so much different" but rather because the other is incomprehensible mainly for himself. As Slavoj Zizek claims, every culture has a blind point that frustrates it of being in harmony with itself. It is like if the cause of not understanding the meaning of a word of a foreign language is not because we do not speak it well but because of the ambiguity that exists inside the word.

In the arena space of Youtube this ambiguity of the different cultural elements, cracks under the pressure of the huge amounts of information noise and becomes a simple game element that serves only to feed the speed of the race toward the rating.