Musical Messaging: The Social and Anti-Social Affordances of WhatsApp in the Football Culture of the Latin American Southern Cone

Abstract

Abstract Argentine, Chilean, and Uruguayan hinchas (soccer or football supporters) cheer for their teams primarily through contrafacta of popular music. Until recently, chants were mainly composed in stadiums and other physical spaces of fan socialization. However, the increasing dominance of the messaging app WhatsApp has altered these sociomusical relations. Drawing on ethnographic work, I argue that the messaging app has fostered both sociality and anti-sociality within and between fanbases. Hinchas employ its creative affordances to digitally decentre creativity from individuals through the distribution of inventive tasks between different people. However, WhatsApp also contributes to football violence by intimately spreading hate memes, aggressive chants, and videos of torture, among other forms of violent media. In illustrating that the messaging app can immerse and infect subjects in both productive and destructive relationalities, this article ultimately underscores the social and anti-social potentialities of viral media and digital technologies.