Jes Grew is all about culture. It's about groups expressing themselves in the way that they want to. It's about freedom and imagination. All of these traits describe social media. Open, easily accesible platforms where users can channel their creativity. The difference between Jes Grew with and without social media is its reach. It's limited in how far it can spread. In the outbreak that happened in Mumbo Jumbo it was restricted to the United States. On the contrary, social media is available for most people, and it's available all over the world. From personal experience I've seen its influence abroad, similar culture and "trends" making its way across continents. This makes it extremely difficult for any group to shut it down as it is always everywhere. "They will try to depress Jes Grew but it will only spring back and prosper."(Reed 204). With Social Media it's so much easier for new outbreaks to emerge. Information is spread to thousands of people in seconds. Even as one instance of Jes Grew fades away or is shut down, social media is already spreading five more. Because of how social media is so beneficial for Jes Grew and supports it so well, it goes beyond the criteria needed for a text. This is the text Jes Grew needs. It's the medium Jes Grew uses to spread so well. It might not be what PaPa LaBas and other members of the Kathedral foresaw for Jes Grew, social media allows Jes Grew to reach new heights.
Wait, social media allows culture to spread without backlash? Social media can be a pretty hateful place where ideas are denounced left and right. How can it be the perfect text for Jes Grew if outbreaks are constantly shut down? Shouldn't a text have a concrete hold on Jes Grew in the sense that it preserves one outbreak forever, and not rapidly introducing new ones repeatedly? While it's definitely true that social media is filled with those who oppose certain ideas, the beauty of social media is that Jes Grew can resurface in so many different ways, even if one outbreak is shut down. Some outbreaks are bigger and longer than others, yet now there's always some form of Jes Grew present in the world. It may not be perfect, forever holding Jes Grew with stability, yet it is wondrous. "We will make our own future Text. A future generation of young artists will accomplish this."(Reed 204). PaPa LaBas expected a generation to cultivate the Text, and I think he would have seen the outcome as more beautiful than he anticipated. While the methods in which Atonists can combat Jes Grew has increased, social media is a suitable Text with its own benefits.
Reed, Ishmael, Mumbo Jumbo. Scribner, 1972.
You make a strong case for the idea that Jes Grew is maybe most visible in our contemporary context through social media--in particular the lack of traditional "gatekeepers" distinguishes social media as more of a cultural free-for-all, while Reed is careful to emphasize all of the ways that publishers and record labels and movie studios and other institutions are aligned with the Atonists, shaping and controlling what people know and what gets treated as serious or legitimate culture.
ReplyDeleteI also think there's an important distinction to be made as we move into the postmodernist context--and again, as Docx pointed out in his 2012 article, the internet is maybe the most "postmodern thing on the planet." The thing that is so "postmodern" about the internet, and specifically social media, is that there IS no single authoritative "Text" with a capital T. There is a vast proliferation of a diverse range of texts, with none being authoritative. It's really not very postmodern, when we think of it, to have this whole Jes Grew phenomenon depend on this one single "Text" which rules over all--in fact, it's kind of Atonist, when you think about it. So it seems like a very important part of the picture that the "future Text" LaBas alludes to will be constructed by a "future generation of artists"--not a single artist recording a single dancer's moves, as with Thoth and Osiris. In the pomo context, we value multiplicity and diversity, and we are not inclined to locate sole cultural authority in one perspective--one "text" does not predominate, in this view. I would say that social media represents the most "decentered" text our society has ever known, and this kind of wide-open access and potential for cultural democracy would seem to be completely in line with Jes Grew aesthetics. Just like we shouldn't interpret the world through a single loa, as PaPa LaBas says, we shouldn't interpret Jes Grew through a single text. That sounds pretty postmodernist to me!
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ReplyDeleteWhile the quote at the end of your post from LaBas certainly calls to mind social media and the internet, I feel like social media is more like Jes Grew itself than the "Text" that LaBas and his associates are searching for. However, social media isn't the same kind of Jes Grew that we see in Mumbo Jumbo, but rather a new kind that seems to have no need for a Text to proliferate, as evidenced by its survival for almost 30 years at this point. The rise of social media has been unlike anything humanity has ever experienced before, and (in quite a postmodern way) defies much of the language we've used in the past to describe social connections and our society while inventing its own. Perhaps it's a kind of constantly-evolving mix between the Text and Jes Grew itself.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I think your idea is very well supported by modern social media activity. I have to say though that the presence of "Atonists" on social media is so rampant. I wonder whether you see this as something closer to the idea of talking androids (although not entirely the same) or if maybe this is more reminiscent of the Wallflower Order's desperate search for the "Text". Could it be that these "outbreaks of backlash" are an attempt to suppress culture, or in some sense a "Text" in and of themselves? Good job!
ReplyDeleteHey Belal, great post! I like how you connected Jes Grew's text to social media as it makes the story feel especially relevant since platforms like TikTok and Instagram are thriving right now and doing so through new forms of creativity and cultural expression. I like how you frame social media to also be chaotic and everlasting. The parallel here is that Jes Grew doesn't need one "Text" as social media is constantly shifting, and proves to still be persevering. Wonderful post!
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