Redes sociales: el carnaval, el mito y el héroe

Abstract

This article will not try to resort to determinisms, but rather appeal to generate new readings and questions from a critic perspective. We propose to address –regarding social networks- some theoretical conceptions about the carnival figure and the mask, and also, to develop articulations around the notion of exposure and the myth of the hero to re-think the citizen’s participation in the net. Furthermore, we’ll try to evidentiate the possible tensions with the commercialization of the every day life, through the creation of needs, non stop consumerism and the subjective manipulation underlying in certain market strategies via social networks, intensified even more in times of COVID-19. The mask and the characters represented are analyzers that allow us to visualize what might be beneath and so, they enable distinguishing between –what we here denominate- the invented identities (users) and the historically constructed identities, those that name us and give us belonging in a genealogy (our own name). In the complex social and symbolic organization that nets produce, we understand that there are expressions of multiple violences: of gender, environmental, economic, psychological, rights, the collective values. Under the logic of the social reproduction of inequalities, for there to be heroes it must have defeats.