The Gift Economy

Today I will be talking about what tor gift economy means to me as well as what others might see it as. I think that the gift economy varies depending on how the person views the situation. I see it as whatever I put in I hope I hope to get something back in return in some way, shape or form. In this blog, I will try my best to explain how I use the gift economy In a daily basis while sometimes I forget that I am even using it.

I will first start off with something that I feel like I can talk about for a long time just because it means so much to me and my entire family. SPORTS. This is something that brings my family together no matter what we are going through. When it comes to the gift economy, I see many possibilities throughout different people that are involved in the sports topic. When you are playing a sport, you need to work hard on your craft every day to get better. This means you need to do extra work day in and day out if you want to succeed and see yourself grow as player. The relationship between a player and his/her coach is quite important. When a player works his butt off, they expect the coach to notice and tell them good job and to keep up the good work. Not only that but they want the coach to see the progress and start them or just put them in the game to show their hard World is being rewarded. Another relationship could be with the player and the fans. When you go out on the court or field, they expect you to do your best and do a good job. What the player wants in return is for them to cheer them on loud and show that they support them with all that they have.

Another example of gift economy that we use on a daily basis that’s e may not even think about has to do with our social media. There are reasons that we post things to our social media and we have expectations. When someone takes time to edit their photos or takes the time to take a “good photo” that expect the people that see it to double tap on the pic to like it or even give them a comment to make them feel better about what they just posted. When I like or comment on someone’s pictures, that is kind of like a “hey I liked your picture so can you do the same on my pictures when I post?” Same thing goes for me following a person. If I follow you, I expect you to follow me back because that’s just how things go these days.

These same rules can apply things like school or even YouTube. When you are doing your school work and you continue to study for all of your test, you expect for your teachers to give you good grades and you expect your grade in the class to be an A or passing. When it comes to YouTube, these stars put out content that they hope tons of people are wanting to watch and find joy in clicking on their videos because that is the whole point of YouTube. It is normal for every single YouTuber to say “please like, share and subscribe to my YouTube Chanel that would be greatly appreciated.”  Your gift is the videos that they are continuing to post because let’s be honest, you are excited to see that your favorite YouTuber has posted a new video. They ask for you to like the vid and subscribe so that they can make more money and continue to do so in this cycle that you don’t even know is happening.

The gift economy is an mode of exchange where values or not traded or sold but they are given without a specific agreement. The gift economy is something that a lot of us look over and is something that happens without us knowing. This is something that is going to continue to happen forever weather we know it or not.

Goodwin