[Marxism] When Facebook Isn't Fun, or...

[rohanger@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

"When Facebook Isn't Fun, or, Why iLife Isn't My Life: Immaterial
Labor in the Age of Web 2.0"

***DRAFT OUTLINE***

I. It Is Your Patriotic Duty to Consume
 
[snip]
 
 
Very interesting.  May I suggest that under Section II you take up explicitly 
the commodification of culture - that is all cultural forms: music, 
entertainment,.. domestic artifacts.  This is evidenced very clearly in 
Australia.  When Australians are questioned about what is "Australian culture" 
EVERY answer not related to indiginous Australians is a consumer commidity 
(Victor lawn-mower, Vegemite, Hills Hoist clotheslines, etc, etc) or at the 
least highly consumption related (eg organised sport).  The reason is that 
"Austrialian" cultural development (I mean mainstream) has not been 
pre-capitalist.  Countries with strong pre-capitalist cultural forms have 
cultural phenomena like festivals in which financial transactions are not 
a main focus.  Mainstream Australian cultural life has none of these.  In this 
situation the working class has largely been relegated to spectatorship rather 
than being participants in culture life.  Music
 culture means buying CD's to listen to on your expensive hi-fi or paying to 
watch a band, not getting together with friends to play instuments, unless you 
are unusually talented**.  With the commodification of culture it becomes 
increasing about passive consumption rather than active participation.  
But paradoxically, the internet - itself a commodity - facilitates, at least in 
part, a reversal of the trend.  Blogs and other internet facilities allow for 
increased participation by non specialists - even if this does represent unpaid 
labour as you say.
 
 
"Consumption, far from being an exercise of individual freedom, is in 
capitalism a duty and a form of unpaid work which is essential to the ongoing 
survival of the system."
 
I think maybe you over-generalise here.  Or are you saying that lying on the 
deckchair of a luxery ocean liner (leisure consumption) is a form of work?  : )
 
Cheers
Rohan G
 
 
**Karoke is a highly interesting music culture penomenom.  The transition over 
time has been:
1 pre-feudal: Get together with fellow community members to produce music.
2 capitalist: Pay capitalists for the opportunity to hear the specialist 
musician "labourers".
3 capitalist: Pay capitalists for the opportunity to perform along with 
prefabricated music that has been produced by specialist musician "labourers".
 


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