If you are new to this blog, you should at least read these snippets to catch up:
What is Global Culture?
From the beginning:
Global Culture should not be about MacDonalds and Starbucks in every little town around the world. It should be the opposite: being able to experience your own cultural heritage in the context of a foreign community. So if you come from Venezuela, where good coffee is a century-old tradition, you should be able to find the equivalent to your traditional coffee house wherever you go. If done well, becoming a global citizen should not require you to loose your cultural baggage.
Our mission
From a local blog:
It is the Local Culture that needs advocates so it’s not diluted among the overwhelming amount of marketing messages that try to keep us loyal to the products of global corporations at the expense of a future where there is no memory of our authentic origins and no foundation for a meaningful society.
From a convenient solution: community living:
what this project aims to accomplish is to establish the mechanisms for different communities to exchange valuable information about their lifestyles in such a way that they enrich themselves by adapting those practices they lack. All this implemented by a legion of immigrants that far from being “frequent travellers” always foreign to the place where they land, are not afraid of leaving home behind knowing that their journey will not require abandoning their cultural heritage.
From observing the diffusion of memes:
It’s not just a catchy phrase. It refers to the process of documenting how snippets of cultural behavior are moving beyond their original culture, and it is one of the most important tools that I believe we can implement to better understand how Global Culture is evolving
From the cultural commons:
Through methodic documentation of our global culture, it is possible to create boundaries around the space of what we are and what belongs to us. The tools exist already in the form of social networks, blogs, forums for us to become organized, enlist ourselves as observers of our local cultures, diligently taking notes of its transformation as people converge into them and move on to other places, transferring deserving cultural expressions to remote places.
From the triumph of civilization and culture:
It is our mission to use the tools of civilization such as culture and technology to keep humanity moving forward without allowing the dark forces of globalization to rule the world. In the myth, the two gods are related, often considered twins. This is a particularly important image that conveys a clear message: in this battle we are not going to find an enemy other than our own apathy, which takes us through the easy path at the expense of a wholesome future. Settling for a life style characterized by a culture of consumism and indiference to the real problems of our age is what must be defeated.
Migrants: Agents of Global Culture
From guy-from-the-train:
In our communities of origin everyone speaks the same language so we never pay attention to what others say around us. It’s just background noise. However, when we move away into a country that has a different language we don’t expect to hear ours in public. That’s why when we’re on the train, our mother tongue will resonate so loudly when coming from a stranger and will create a very good opportunity for bridging the gap. More often than not, the brief conversation will lead to a stronger relationship.
From more guest workers:
The WTO is now looking at adding a third type: Transactionals, that is those who are hired to fulfill a specific job and will be discarded (returned home) when the job is done, limiting any influence they may have in life beyond the scope of the business transaction itself, rendering them invisible to society. They will come, do the job and leave no tracks. The engine that has shaped global culture will soon stop moving. The agents of culture transfer will be no more.
From the chicano network:
You have to be impressed with the fact that this social network is capable of recruiting over half a million immigrants per year in a way that most of them will be able to make a living for a good season.
From migration with intent:
Understanding the key reasons why people migrate is the first step to create a foundation that will lead to smart policy around integration of these migrants into their chosen destination… Seeking fortune, reuniting the family, following industries, commuting abroad
Patterns of Global Culture
From world cup fever:
Soccer is a great example of how a simple human activity has become part of a culture by creating symbols that elevate the significance of such activity. That is the definition of culture according to the Wikipedia. I don’t need to explain the ritual of soccer, with all its rules whether playing an official game or an improvised one in a dirt field, which have evolved over a period of many decades. Playing soccer, as a cultural activity goes well beyond shooting a ball into a net. It feeds self-esteem, gives rank, defines identity, requires practice, segregates those who don’t play, elevates those who do, equalizes players, polarizes spectators.
From the end of television:
If TV has been so engrained in our culture, what does the BitTorrent revolution (around 2004) means? What can we infer when corporations decide to take action by targeting TV Download Sites (mid 2005)? They were obviously nervous about how much attention was being taken from them. It took a gutsy move by Apple (Oct 2005) to admit that there was no going back to the television set and that content producers had to find ways of leveraging the Internet as the new distribution channel.
From hackers & work culture:
While blogging is not always this kind of intellectual exercise, the huge number of blogs (50 million, according to Technorati) points to a very important fact: increasing number of people are moving away from their mandated jobs and investing their own time to develop all kinds of personal projects that provide real entertainment.
From 8 hours labour, 8 hours blog, 8 hours rest:
I’m more interested in understanding how some of our programmed habits (i.e. culture) are being deeply challenged by the mechanisms of our modern society and its obsession with the net. In the title “8 hours blog”, blogging is a metaphor for all those little things we do seeking to participate in the global village. It is appropriate that it replaces the 8 hours of recreation that our ancestors were asking for, as having a voice on the web certainly provides all the entertainment that our generation can ask for.
From lonelytv:
for a new generation of viewers, viewing is not enough. Participation is a must. The Lonelygirl15 phenomenon provides a preview of the type of interactivity that the audience is demanding. Unscheduled snippets of action, very short, cuasi-serialized but easily interchangeable, many different levels of stories that may appeal to different participants, alternate channels to get involved whether providing comments or producing additional snippets of content and endless hooks to plug-in their own ideas into the story.
The anti-culture
From the idle class:
Corporations dream of a very large idle class. A massive conglomerate of families with a certain acquisition power, sufficient to make them great consumers, but nothing else. Idle, because once they reach their peak as consumers they are expected to do nothing else but stay there.