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Foam Celebrities: #boicotalacomay and the Emergence of a Cultural Citizenship in Puerto Rico

Mon, May 30, 4:15 to 5:45pm, TBA

Abstract

This presentation examines the social media movement that led to a boycott and eventual cancellation of Puerto Rico's highest rated TV show, titled “SuperXclusivo.” The gossip show ignited a controversy in 2012 when its host, a puppet character called “La Comay”, implied that the murder of a local publicist was caused by soliciting the services of a sex worker. Within 24 hours of the comments being made, a social media movement calling for a boycott emerged creating networks of power that challenged the power of a major local TV network. Through an online ethnography and textual analysis of the social media movement, this research explore how these events prompted the configuration of a cultural citizenship in ways that subsidizes a second-class citizenship attached to Puerto Rico in two ways: as a territory of the US ruled by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and also to certain factions of the population who have experienced social disenfranchisement, particularly the LGBT community, Dominicans and Afro Puerto Ricans.

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