Digital communication(s) in extreme/alternative or avant garde sport forms (which I prefer, since they are, like avant garde, moving forward into new formulations, spaces, and incarnations) have taken many forms. New technologies, like Go Pro, stemming from basic helmet cams, and the more massified and cost-available devices like "phone cams" of various incarnations, have made prosuming by amateur athletes a real possibility. Thus, through McLuhan's prescience regarding the "global village," we see kids videoing themselves and friends for instructional, display, and social reasons.
If I were to look for any one of a number of Rollerblading® tricks online (in Vimeo or YouTube for example), I could find, in clear, accessible language and visual display, the trick named, historicised, demonstrated (in slo mo, in real-time). I could re-play this, download it to my phone, take it out onto the street, and work this move until I "got it." This serves the purpose of an instructional video purveyed through digital media.
Prosumers--those who create videos of themselves to not only consume but to produce, enjoying the whole process of production and creation--also use these videos to display their skills, their place and space, their position in the pecking orders of avant garde sport formations. This display is performative and gives them a sense of their own and others' symbolic (and real) capital.
Finally, through the use of digital technologies, these action sport enthusiasts link up with others across the globe, in a sort of contemporary electronic "pen pal" chain that is highly sophisticated and meaningful. Kids participating in this social loop may build their own sense of worth, of self-confidence, and of being in the group. Kind group members from other countries can electronically share in the fears and hopes (perhaps) that adolescent kids often may not have access to in their real homes and communities. By joining virtual communities of digital avant garde aficionados, young people may be fulfilling many of the socialisation processes that real people usually perform.
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I think the focus on
I think the focus on prosumers here is certainly something that should be looked at more. Instead of focusing on those that consuming the product (in this case the videos that are being posted) the prosumers seem to get a bigger sense of accomplishment. Not only are they ones that had put the time into the videos that they create (say mastering a trick) but they're also the ones that watch others take the video they've created and share it amongst their groups or friends over and over again, which shows the idea of weak-ties and social capital very well. This can also be attributed to the 'global village' image that you have brought up as well, both capitalizing on the social aspect.
Their action of displaying "their skills, their place and space, their position in the pecking orders of avant garde sport formations" showcases the broad reach that the social media sites they are a part of can continue to grow that social capital within the 'global village' they've created which can then be studied in various other avenues.
Communal org. within varying modes and spaces of prosumption.
Thank you for your post Robert!
I wanted to use this excerpt from your post to ask about Instagram accounts that post photos and video clips of "avante garde athletes," or in this case, bodyboarders and surfers. Often times, these posts are made by third parties and borrowed from other sources, or at least it seems this way. I saw one such post this morning from the IG handle "kookslams." A "kook" is a pejorative term for an unexperienced surfer or bodyboarder. Is there an understanding of how the avante garde sports community looks upon this type of positioning within "the pecking order?" Within other social (sub)cultures, the appropriation of un-sourced material for one's own account is often frowned upon (e.g. the recent controversy surrounding the "fat jew" IG account and the use of other's jokes). It should be recognized that extreme sport athlete's often value courage rather than successful execution, thus, a video posted of one surfer "wiping out" isn't necessarily meant to be an insult. This, of course, reflects specific community mores that guide communication and frame meaning. Ultimately, if the use of digital communication tools and technologies help organize relations within that community, how are the boundaries of this communication reigned in as to maintain an organization of flow? Is this a concern at all? That is, how is performativity and the pecking order protected against the increasing and varying modes of prosumption? Does "real capital" ever disrupt perceptions of "symbolic" capital within subcultures of sport?
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Thanks for your comments, Jess and David! I do think prosumers are a new formation within contemporary sports. The ability to not just watch, relate to, and otherwise "consume" media but to create, produce, interact with ( in various ways) creates a new relationship between the doer, the watcher(s), and the audience, for want of a better term. They become highly conflated, faster than before, but also where prosuming means enhanced agency. The avant garde, to me, is a slightly tangential kettle of fish in this discussion. While prosumers may represent aspects of this avante garde, it is much more: it is technical and technological advances, it is audience affect nearly (but not quite) replicating athletic experience (Go pro! helmet cams! drones, etc.) by not just visually "being there," but by including other sensory experiences as well. The extreme sport experience has the potential to come closest to actually doing it (e.g., Wii technology, virtual reality) than ever before. But avant garde also is always pushing the envelope, always creating new formations out of what we currently know or imagine. It is the new air racing, with rocket-powered airplanes racing through huge vertical pylons, for example. As to the social controls over distribution, I think it varies widely. When entrepreneurs sink money into sports leagues, they have simply taken what once was "avant garde" and made it professionalized. They have put legal, social, and cultural fences around the sport forms. The grass roots, un-bureaucratic nature of the avant garde has been diminished. But--at least in this historical moment--up until then, I think this sporting avante garde would be more akin to open source, Creative Commons types of distributions.
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