Narcissus and the Internet Revolution

Twenty years ago Brazilian cantautor Caetano Veloso wrote a song called “Santa Clara, Padroeira de Televisao” in which he prays to Santa Clara, the Patron Saint of Television, that “Video be a pool where Narcissus/Shall be a god who will also know how to resurrect.” For many years, since the days that television transmitted images of turmoil in Vietnam, Paris, Mexico City, Newark, and Los Angeles, it seems that Pablo Pueblo, Pedro Pedreiro, has been in a narc-oleptic dream state, unable to Act Up, waiting for the next organizing tool –la internet que despierta. And so, in Egipto the emergence of cyber-pragmatism as a central element in the downfall of a U.S. –backed dictator in the Middle East has become a defining discourse. Like it or not, the internet revolution has set off a storm of analysis that seems to pit younger against older generaciones to debate the merits of inherently narcissistic capitalist tools like Facebook and Twitter as political organizers.