#globalization
With over 125 million views in the month (roughly) since it was released, Lil Dicky’s music video Earth certainly is getting quite a bit of attention, especially (or so I’m told) in the tweenager/young-teenager crowd. The video draws on a wealth of big-name star power, profanity (although there is a “clean” version for children with 16 million views), and humor to convey its “globalized” pro-Earth/pro-Environmental message to a younger audience, before ending with a message about global warming and the twelve-year deadline, with a link to take action through WeLoveTheEarth.org. While there are certainly quite a few issues one might take with the song lyrics and visual representation, what I want to explore are not only the limitations implicit in this approach (namely a very Global North/Ameri-centric “globalized” imaginary, an obscuring of capitalist/corporate responsibility for climate change in favor of a neoliberal individual actions model, a maintaining of the Human/Nature binary, and a focus on a young audience when older demographics are perhaps more in need of convincing), but also the strengths of this approach and why, perhaps, it may be useful to step back and let these “meme-friendly” call-to-arms proliferate, rather than critiquing imperfect representations to death.
Ultimately, because I can see both how strong both the limitations and possibilities to these various approaches are, I am undecided on what the “correct” course of action may be. I recognize that the stakes are higher in this for some than for others–both in the sense that lack of action disproportionately is affecting certain communities, who therefore are more invested in results over perfect representation, as well as the way that because of the disproportionate effects of inaction, certain communities may find it less viable to overlook (and therefore further obscure) these inequalities; because of this, I am certainly not in any position to draw firm conclusions, and what follows is intended to be an exploration which I hope will invite a broader conversation.
Okay so let me start with a rundown of the limitations; while there are several points I’m making here, I am honestly going to try to keep each as succinct as possible because I think these may be more obvious than the benefits (that being said, I’m more than happy to delve into these points further if anyone has any questions or feels they do need to be made more visible). First, lets look at the “globalized” imaginary. The song’s chorus goes:
Earth, it is our planet (It’s our planet)
We love the Earth (We love the Earth), it is our home (Home)
We love the Earth, it is our planet (It is our planet)
We love the Earth, it is our home
We love the Earth
Other lines include “We love you, India/Africa/the Chinese,” the humorous “We forgive you, Germany,” and “C'mon everybody, I know we’re not all the same / But we’re living on the same Earth.” These lines simultaneously call for a globalized action, while also imagining a) that something quasi-globalized already exists and b) that “differences” are the reason we have not fully come together. Frederick Cooper has an amazing article which I highly recommend called “What Is the Concept of Globalization Good for? An African Historian’s Perspective,” and one of his arguments which is especially relevant here is that “a ‘globalizing’ language stood alongside a structure of domination and exploitation that was lumpy in the extreme” (204). What does it mean, in this context, to say “we love the Earth,” let alone “we love you, India/Africa/China”? Listing Global South nations which often bare the brunt of capitalist/colonialist industrial exploitation might be intended to acknowledge the uneven effects global warming has on marginalized communities (what Rob Nixon has termed “slow violence”); but then why is Germany on the list (other than for the comedic effect), and more importantly who is the “we” who “loves” these nations, and what does that “love” amount to? I think constantly of Elizabeth Catte’s comment in What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia, that she felt paranoid traveling for academic conferences that she would bring the smell of the coal industry with her, and give herself away as someone who wasn’t worth not being poisoned. Love is a beautiful idea to invoke, but do “we” “love” the Global South enough to stop poisoning “them”? And what about the poor in the Global North?
The lack of definition of “we” contributes to my second problem with the song/video: while I do not mean to undermine the absolute value individual actions have towards improving the environment, the opening of the song focuses on litter and the fumes exuded by personal vehicles. There is no direct reference to the kinds of waste and pollution created by corporations.
Thirdly, the lyrics contain a laundry list of humorous animal descriptions such as “Hi, I’m a baboon I’m like a man, just less advanced and my anus is huge.” While obviously intended to be funny, these descriptions reify the Human/Animal and Human/Nature divide and contribute to binary logics. One of the criticisms of the “Anthropocene” narrative is that it seperates “humanity” from “nature” in ways which obscure the entanglement actually involved in environmental networks. This is not in any way to imply that human actions and systems are not responsible for global warming (whether you put the blame on humanity in general as in the Anthropocene or specific individuals acting through capitalism as in the Capitalocene there is no denying that climate crisis is happening because of human action); rather, the problem here is that it this binary attempts to imagine a separateness between humans and nature which is not useful in addressing climate change, because it obscures the intricacy of interaction and allows us to vastly oversimplify what we see as viable solutions.
Finally, the video and lyrics are clearly intended to draw in a younger demographic, and yet polls have shown that there is an age gap in concern about climate change which trends towards younger populations.
That being said, let’s look at why this video may be a good and necessary thing, despite the potential drawbacks. First, even though younger people tend to already believe in and be more concerned about climate change than older folks, studies have shown that children change their parents’ minds about climate change, so convincing children/teens to care about climate change and to talk about it with their parents does have a measurable impact on the opinions of older adults. This leads to why the humorous lyrics and video may be particularly useful, despite the problematics outlined above. At this moment in time, social media and memes in particular are a particularly powerful political weapon. Mother Jones recently ran an article titled ““The Left Can’t Meme”: How Right-Wing Groups Are Training the Next Generation of Social Media Warriors” which outlines the role memes have played in perpetuating conservative and far-right thought and manifesting conservative/far-right desires. Memes are “cheap, subversive, and designed to provoke an emotional response, memes are a disruptive form of information guerrilla warfare.” Another article discussing “The Evolution of Political Internet Memes” argues that “memes are likely to gain more importance in a post-text future. Younger generations are shifting more and more to visual platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat. Images are therefore more likely shape their views on politics and politicians.” For these reasons, a song/music video such as Earth which is likely to draw in a large audience of kids/teens due to star power (everyone from Justin Bieber to Halsey to Kevin Hart makes an appearance), humor, and catchy tune is likely to make an impact on children and therefore their parents. Furthering this point, the website linked at the end of the music video presents itself in a far more professional manner–this is what parents are more likely to be looking at (and potentially donating to, and taking advice from) than the song itself.
So again, I’m not sure whether this benefit outweighs the oversimplifications presented through the lyrics/video but I do think they’re worth considering, and I absolutely invite further conversation on this matter. Do we need to follow the conservative meme-model of making politics more easily legible/accessible? Or does this model further obscure the struggles of marginalized folks and render invisible issues that need to be brought to light and challenged? Is there a (better) way to balance this?
Western Architecture is Making India’s Heatwaves Worse
The Kuriakoses’ experience was an early taste of a phenomenon that, over the next few decades, spread across most of India’s big cities. As a more standardized international approach to building design emerged, many Indian architects abandoned the vernacular traditions that had been developed over thousands of years to cope with the weather extremes of different regions. The earthen walls and shady verandas of the humid south, and the thick insulating walls and intricate window shades of the hot dry northwest, were swapped for a boxy modern style. Today, buildings in downtown Bangalore often look like those in Ahmedabad, in the north, or Chennai, in the east—or those in Cincinnati, Ohio, or Manchester, England.
In the climate change era, that uniformity is looking like a mistake. Large parts of India have been stifled by a spring heatwave since April, with temperatures lingering close to 110°F for weeks in some places, and topping 120°F in Delhi this week, making it dangerous to go to work or school—all weeks before the official start of summer. Spiking energy demand for cooling has helped trigger daily blackouts in cities, and what AC units are running are belching hot air into streets, worsening the urban heat island effect. As such heatwaves become increasingly common and long-lasting, experts say India’s modern building stock will make it harder for Indians to adapt.
The architecture of Indian cities began to change rapidly in the 1990s, when the country transitioned to a market-based economy. As construction boomed, Western or globalized styles became the norm. The shift was partly aesthetic; developers favored the glassy skyscrapers and straight lines deemed prestigious in the U.S. or Europe, and young architects brought home ideas they learned while studying abroad. Economic considerations also played a role. As land became more expensive in cities, there was pressure to expand floorspace by eliminating thick walls and courtyards. And it was faster and easier to throw up tall structures using steel and concrete, rather than use traditional earth blocks which are suited to lower-rise structures.
The consequence of that cookie-cutter approach was to make buildings less resilient to India’s high temperatures. The impact of that once seemed minimal. It could easily be offset by electric fans and air conditioning, and the energy costs of cooling were not developers’ problems once they sold their buildings. “Where a home [built in the vernacular style] needs around 20 to 40 kilowatt hours per meter squared of energy for cooling, today some commercial places need 15 times that,” says Yatin Pandya, an architect based in Ahmedabad. When AC units are turned on to help people sleep at night, they release heat into the streets, which can increase the local temperature by around 2°F according to U.S.-based studies. During the day, depending on their orientation, glassy facades can reflect sunlight onto footpaths. “You’re creating [problems] in every direction.”
The shift away from climate-specific architecture hasn’t only affected offices and luxury flats, whose owners can afford to cool them. To maximize urban space and budgets, a massive government housing program launched in 2015 has relied largely on concrete frames and flat roofs, which absorb more heat throughout the day than sloped roofs. “We’re building hot houses. In certain parts of the year, they will require cooling to be habitable,” says Chandra Bhushan, a Delhi-based environmental policy expert. He estimates that roughly 90% of the buildings under construction today are in a modern style that pays little attention to a region’s climate—locking in increased heat risk for decades to come.
Similar shifts have happened in developing countries all over the world, with cities from the Middle East to Latin America taking on the “copy and paste texture of globalized architecture,” says Sandra Piesik, a Netherlands-based architect and author of Habitat: Vernacular Architecture for a Changing Planet. As the global construction industry embraced concrete and steel, local materials, designs, and technologies became displaced—with lasting consequences. “Some of these traditional methods didn’t undergo the technological revolution that they needed,” to make them more durable and easier to use on a massive urban scale, Piesek says. “We focused instead on [perfecting] the use of concrete and steel.”
it would really baffle people in the 1980s and ‘90s to think that Korea would be a major cultural force in the future, like, Korea? the country that makes shitty cars and electronics? that Korea? in what world could Korean pop stars and soap operas suddenly become popular outside of Korea itself they would naturally ask.
even at the peak of the Japanese economic boom there weren’t too many people predicting a Japanese cultural wave to follow the inevitable global economic dominance, and for once they were right! but then the Korean thing comes completely out of nowhere.
it does suggest one meaningful difference between “hard power” and “soft power” though: cultural exports are as good as oil and gas exports in terms of the dollars they bring in, but it’s a lot easier for a competitor to cut off your cultural exports without suffering any negative consequences themselves, it’s not like they’ll go cold and hungry in the winter if they can’t buy your idol crap any more.
even at the peak of the Japanese economic boom there weren’t too many people predicting a Japanese cultural wave to follow the inevitable global economic dominance, and for once they were right!
did you forget about anime again
vidya, too
where I’m sitting it really feels like korea is japan 10 or 20 or so years behind or whatever
I wasn’t alive for it but jap crap was a thing right? made in japan being good was a label that came after economic power and cultural power
korean film definitely feels like it’s stolen the positioning of japanese film twenty years ago
idk if jpop and japanese music ever had much western premise, but kpop has absolutely taken over in the markets that matter, like japan
admittedly anime as a western phenomenon appears not to have crested yet, so that doesn’t really fit. not sure if there’s a korean equivalent, people talk about kdramas? my friend’s parents watch some kdramas? that still seems relatively niche tho
video games are not really japanese tinted in the way they were in the 90s / early 00s. it’s still a bit of a thing tho. not sure if korea really has an equivalent
video games are not really japanese tinted in the way they were in the 90s / early 00s
I mean as far as cultural exports, what do you a call a video game created by a Dutch studio owned by a Japanese Conglomerate with an American cast? The true power of globalization is not just that different countries influence global culture but that it’s hard to even define what a cultural export is.
Globalization era
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#thibaultleclercq #globalization #causes #consequences #connection #world #everythingisconnected #metaphore #allegory #snowballeffect #chainreaction #fox #cartoon #animation #2D #humor
https://www.instagram.com/p/B3m7ArtCq0o/?igshid=dkgv6xphjwbg
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“The struggle between the people and the hatred amongst them is being nurtured by very specific interested parties. It is a small, rootless international clique that is turning people against each other that does not want them to have peace. It is a people who are at home both nowhere and everywhere. Who do not have anywhere a soil on which they have grown up but who live in Berlin today. Brussels tomorrow, Paris the day after, then Praque, Vienna or London and who feel at home everywhere. They are the only ones who can really be regarded as international elements because they conduct their business everywhere.”
-AH
Religious Studies, University of Denver
To Boldly Go and Keep Going: Star Trek, Globalization, and Fanfiction
Yes, there’s a big scare of the upcoming years where automation will be the protagonist of the next industrial revolution. AI and labor simplification are going to shift the way we value production through the markets and how we understand modern capitalism.
The next years will be characterized by the 5G network advancing which will pull a whole new line of smart devices onto production, and therefore onto sale with their relative marketing and digital content sale through the web, press, and television. This alone will spark new interest in the next major change society will face towards the technological front.
5G network will unfold the potential of remote business opportunities.
But what’s next? After smartphones and similar we will see more automation in terms of car manufacturing, which doesn’t directly mean self-driving cars invading the streets, but more electronic components being manufactured and installed into our cars driving us to work. Phone features will be heavily integrated into car systems.
We shouldn’t be surprised if our next car will be ready for McDonald’s drive-through payments just like our transponder when paying to ride certain highways. The vehicle of tomorrow is based on our current behavior we develop thanks to the smartphone in our hands.
AI will manage our behavior when they will govern payments through cars.
Augmented reality is already playing it’s part with enriched User Interfaces which provide a better User Experience. Cars interiors are becoming futuristic for the need to implement new-found technology and to put it to good use, but also to market it so automakers can develop new standards.
Brands will invest into the car industry to propose custom solutions to make vehicles original. Your next car interior will feature patterns nobody else will have, thus making the brand experience more unique and long-lasting. Here 3D printing of different kinds will help making this into a reality to the point even local artisan shops will have their impact.
Individualism will be the key element in the next market change towards Industry 4.0
But what does it mean? It means we will have very soon a different approach on our product creation. We are going to upset the very fabric of how we understand social behavior in the first place; thus we will have to deal with a shift in the way individuals in the workplace interact between.
Industry 4.0 is going to reshape market habits all the way to our simple daily interaction, creating new behavior with the prospect of a new set of rules for society to absorb. The next decade will be about the user and a tailored marketing experience to fit his/her needs.
An excerpt of a speech given by Noam Chomsky in June of 1998, in Canada, on the subject on the world economy.
