Textualizing YouTube: Cultivating Bonds of Community via an Online Collaborative Platform in Hong Kong

Abstract

Textualizing YouTube:Cultivating Bonds of Community via an Online Collaborative Platform in Hong Kong Ka Lee Wong (bio) Introduction Swallow Life (燕子生命) is an online collaborative platform in Hong Kong that aims to cultivate bonds of community and provide entertainment to political prisoners who participated in the pro-democracy protests. In 2019 and 2020, the largest waves of protests in Hong Kong responded to increasing forms of authoritarian control exercised by mainland China in the city. More than 10,000 protesters were arrested and around 3,000 individuals were prosecuted for offenses related to the protest. In view of this, an anonymous group of local Hong Kongers established an online platform, Swallow Life, to consolidate resources to help improve the lives of the imprisoned protesters. On their website, Swallow Life hosts a wide range of guidelines and suggestions about detention, bail, trial, sentence, and inmate visitation, so that protesters and their families can prepare for and plan their responses to the initial arrest and detention. The platform is unique in the sense that it attempts to create a network of community for the detainees through various forms of online collaboration. Besides arranging pen pals for prisoners, it also initiates a special service called "YouTube Streaming Box" (YouTube 機頂盒) to simulate an online experience for inmates who have no access to the internet in prison. To enable detainees to "watch" YouTube videos in prison, Swallow Life invites volunteers to help convert YouTube videos to a format accepted by the local detention facilities. Every week, volunteers upload transcripts of YouTube videos on the platform so that either volunteers on the platform, inmates' pen pals, or families can download and then send the printouts to prison. This [End Page 25] textualization of YouTube videos stretches our understanding of what is meant by media shareability: the circulation of online videos in prison is not made possible by an effortless click of a share button, but is enabled by the labor involved in connecting volunteers and converting videos to a format approved by local prisons. In this essay, I reflect on how this labor-intensive process to textualize and distribute YouTube videos prompts us to rethink what media shareability means. I contend that Swallow Life's practice of sharing YouTube videos is not a form of clicktivism where netizens perform their support to a political cause with an effortless click of a share button. Instead, the platform demonstrates the power of bottom-up participatory culture by fostering an intimate community offline, where volunteers can bond with the arrested protesters, sharing not just their popular media but also emotional support. Context: The Largest Scale Protests in Hong Kong's History The waves of protests in Hong Kong were triggered by the local government's proposal in March 2019 to amend the extradition law. When the amendment is stipulated, anyone who commits crimes in Hong Kong or other places that have extradition treaties with the city will possibly be sent back to mainland China for trial. This is very concerning for the local people, because it will mean the end of the independent status of Hong Kong's judicial system. An independent judicial system, along with other civil rights including the right to assembly, publish, and demonstrate, ought to be sustained in the city until 2046, according to the Sino-British Joint Declaration. The latter was signed by the United Kingdom and China in 1984 and determined the future of the then-British colony Hong Kong, which was then handed over from the UK to China in 1997. The proposed extradition law triggered much anxiety in Hong Kong. Many believed that the law signified a more direct control by China in the city; thus, they would not be able to enjoy as high a level of autonomy as before. The two large-scale Sunday marches on June 9 and June 16, 2019, which were attended by 1.3 and 2 million people respectively, were the beginning of a series of protests in the city where 7 million people reside. The Hong Kong government did not take heed of these oppositions; instead, they decided to proceed with passing the law, while stepping up to suppress the protests with the police...