Marcus’ mixtapes: three models of everyday gift culture

Neon Mix Tape Banner 80s Cassette Birthday Decoration http://tinyurl.com/kulentf

I spent my preteens in Jakarta, Indonesia. My parents moved to Jakarta in 1979, lured by the promise of company-funded accomodation, cheap travel, and an exotic lifestyle. They took us three kids along for the ride. For my parents, life in a third world tropical metropolis and military dictatorship turned out to be harder than they’d imagined. For me, at the age of 11, Jakarta was an adventure ripped straight from the frames of a James Bond movie, with dapper diplomats, hair-raising traffic, and heroes and villains abound.

There are many stories I could tell about my time in Jakarta. Here I offer one: the story of Marcus McAdam and his mix-tapes.

One downside of living in Jakarta was that we were cut off from the culture machine that had dominated life in New Zealand. At home, I’d been cultivating a passion for Blondie and the Cars. At the bustling markets of Pasar Baru, I could pick up any number of pirated cassettes, and I compiled a back catalogue of every band I’d heard of. Yet, there was no Western radio or television stations in Jakarta at the time, and no internet to browse in pursuit of the latest thing. I soon discovered how dependent I’d become on the weekly chart countdown. I didn’t lack for entertainment, but I had no idea what kinds of entertainment were cool. With my teenage years on the horizon, this was a serious problem.

Into the breach stepped Marcus MacAdam. Marcus was my friend Andrew’s older brother. At fifteen years old, Marcus knew everything about anything worth knowing about: bands, movies, comics, all the important stuff. He was a legend. Marcus left Jakarta for boarding school in Perth shortly after my family arrived in Indonesia. Twice or thrice a year he would fly back to Jakarta with news of the outside world. Marcus introduced me to the pop-cultural references that (for better or worse) defined my teenage imagination: Alien (‘…and this thing just explodes out of his stomach!’), KISS (‘…and then Gene Simmon goes HUURR and fire comes out his mouth!’), and The Savage Sword of Conan comics that satisfied my hunger for epic fantasy long after umpteen readings of The Lord of the Rings had taken the shine off the trilogy (‘…plus there’s a movie in the works, starring this Austrian bodybuilder, Arnold Schnizelburger!’).

Some might say that Marcus MacAdam had questionable taste. What the hell – we were kids. Marcus brought Western pop culture to our gated compound, and for that, we were very grateful.

Social media as gift culture: sharing circles and tribes

This is the second post in a series on social media gift cultures. I am interested in how indigenous gift cultures can help us understand the psychological and motivational dynamics of online social sharing. The first post in the series, Social media as gift culture: the reputation game, used the Potlatch ceremony of native North Americans to reflect on the enticements and rewards of sharing online. Social sharing, I argued, involves a reputation game – a ‘virtuous competition’ premised on the free exchange of gifts. As in the Potlatch, social media prosumers seek to create value for their followers through ‘gifts’ in the form of posts, tweets, pins, shares, comments, vouches, etc. The more value they create, the more reputation they earn and the more support they stand to gain from their communities.

In sharing content online, we are playing a reputation game. The object of the game is not to beat other players but to challenge them to greater expressions of generosity. It is a battle of abundant spirits that contributes to the common good.

This post shifts geographical focus from North America to the Western Pacific. I want to look at the Kula ring of the Kiriwina Islands to reflect on the nature and origins of social media tribes. Your tribes are comprised of people with whom you commonly chat and share online. Sometimes they are based in offline friendships, but not always. Shared values and interests are ultimately all that are required to hold a tribe together. If you are wondering who among your followers count as members of your tribe, make a list of the people who commonly like, favourite, share or RT the things you put online. Make another list of the people whose content you like, favourite, share and RT. Look for names that appear on both lists. These are the members of your tribe.