“Preto e dinheiro são palavras rivais?”: um estudo histórico e contemporâneo sobre a ascensão social e identidade racial dos influenciadores digitais negros brasileiros

Abstract

This dissertation objective to investigate about the creation/rise of a New Black Middle Class through digital media through Black Digital Influencers from the five Brazilian regions (North, Northeast, Southeast, Central-West and South) in a multidisciplinary analysis about racial identity, questioning the emergence in the competitive Digital Market. Through Digital Ethnography in the field of Digital Humanities and Life History, interviews were carried out with black Brazilian influencers about their Family Data (mainly education and intergenerational relationship), their Childhood and Youth (to understand the social nuances of the country's regions ), their Urban or Rural Circulation (to understand migratory phenomena), Professional Data (which led them to become digital influencers), Economic Data (amounts collected in advertisements and consumption, essential for class positioning and also with the return to the black community, the so-called “Black Money”), analyzed with Brazilian Racial Issues (how they understand racism in the country and how they face this issue) to cross with the Bibliographic Review with the beginning of the formation of the Black Middle Class in a historical analysis. To understand the processes of social and racial inequality, trend graphs from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) and the continuous National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) were examined and private institutes such as the Trend Report, among others. For a discussion of the phenomenon, the notion of Race, Racism and Identity and Brazilian racial thinking, Traditional Media in the country (radio, television, newspaper and printed magazines) and the relationship with blackness, leading to Digital Media and the changes in work in modernity, deepened by the recent Covid-19 pandemic. About social ascension, the identification of the Black Middle Class and its peculiarities, confronting the “new man” exposed by Digital Platforms and self-entrepreneurship, touted as the only solution for contemporary man in neoliberalism. Also what are Digital Influencers and their importance for the Digital Market, with metrics and indicators provided by Artificial Intelligence for the control of labor and its financialization, connecting Black Digital Influencers and the objectification of their work and sale of social capital, which can cause dissonance to their racial identity and mental health problems. Finally, the relevance of consolidating black social groups even through digital media for mutual help, a way of blocking modern competition, based on individualization and a lack of racial solidarity.