Privatized Spectacles, Governmentality, and Middle Classness: Viral Video Culture in the Philippines

The saturation rate for Internet use in the Philippines experienced a phenomenal surge, from in 9.1 percent in 2005 to 35 percent in 2013 to 55 percent in 2015. This has allowed privatized access to viral videos, especially those reeking with controversy of enraged individuals—commoners and celebrities—making a spectacle of themselves, and in the process of being illicitly shot and uploaded in the Internet, creating a viral spectacle. This paper links the viral video culture in the Philippines with other viral video controversies in Asian countries, and makes the connection with the intensification of neoliberalism in various parts of Asia, reconceptualizing and localizing the experience of the global consumer, middle class, and citizen in the process.

Rolando B. Tolentino is faculty of the University of the Philippines Film Institute and former dean of the UP College of Mass Communication. He has taught at the Osaka University, National University of Singapore, and now teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include Philippine literature, popular culture, cinema and media, interfacing national and transnational issues. He writes fiction and creative non-fiction, and is a fellow of the UP Institute of Creative Writing. He is a member of the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (Filipino Film Critics Group), Congress of Teachers and Educators for Nationalism and Democracy (CONTEND-UP), and Altermidya (People’s Alternative Media Network).