Camille Sewell
In Ballad of the Bullet, Forrest Stuart chronicles the adventures, adversities, and accomplishments that pattern the lives of Black youth living in the South Side of Chicago. He sheds light on the “commodification of the ghetto” by weaving together fragments of his ethnographic observations and analyses of the conditions responsible for birthing this phenomenon (13). What is unique about Stuart’s work is his person-centered account of how the digital economy is shaping the lives of disadvantaged youth. In academia, there is a tendency to present information in a manner that is stripped of emotion. Such an approach affords many works a sterile and detached tone. Stuart resists engaging in this practice of excluding the voices of his subjects; instead, he fuses theory and personal narratives to unmask the husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers affected by the changing social landscape. Following a group of young men known as the Corner Boys, Stuart depicts how social media is used to escape poverty, bolster self-worth, and garner respect. Yet, he is quick to highlight the insidious undertone of the online attention economy, which exploits stereotypes about urban poverty, perpetuating the marginalization of Black youth.
To contextualize this tension between social media as a tool for cultivating celebrity status and as an instrument for exacerbating racial and socioeconomic disparities, Stuart turns his attention to the lived experiences of drill artists. A contemporary form of rap characterized by hyper-violent imagery, drill music operates to “document street life and violent criminality” (3). The industry has flourished in recent years thanks to social media and the global reach it affords. By staging images of themselves that appeal to the White, suburban youths’ obsession with the “ghetto,” drill musicians can conjure money and notoriety. For Black youth, commodifying this stigma via content that feeds the “voyeuristic desires of consumers” provides them with a source of income (6).
What is important to understand about this display of violence for the sake of online clout is that most of what drillers post is not a reflection of reality; rather, their content is carefully curated to maintain the aura of danger their viewers crave. Though a subset of the Corner Boys engage in illicit activity, many of Stuart’s subjects lead relatively calm, quiet lives with few traces of violence. Drillers work diligently to conceal this truth because their popularity hinges upon the perception that they are truly as ferocious as they claim to be. By leaning into these negative stereotypes, drillers are inadvertently “exacerbating the worst conditions of urban poverty” (8).
He explains that young Black song lyrics about criminal activity are being treated by law enforcement officers as irrefutable evidence of their “offline behaviors,” with verses appearing in courtrooms as proof of their “violent tendencies” (9). Stuart points to this injustice to frame social media as equally as destructive as it is beneficial.
This attunement to the nuances of digital production among Black youth in Chicago merits applause. Stuart provides a robust and thoughtful analysis of how social media shapes the lives of marginalized adolescents by embedding himself in the local community and uplifting the voices of those who are frequently omitted from academic literature. Historically, scholars have distanced themselves from their participants, limiting the extent to which they are able to speak
on behalf of the community members themselves. By working alongside the drillers, Stuart effectively fosters a sense of mutual respect and admiration that affords his research a deeper level of intimacy. Another strength of the book is his ability to illuminate how the digital economy has affected the emotional well-being of Black adolescents. Many critics have commended Stuart for drawing connections between economic and political changes and the rising prevalence of social media, but none have celebrated his attention to both the process and the person. Stuart not only elucidates the ways in which the Internet is perpetuating systemic inequalities, but he also describes the very real and very raw emotional responses that this digital revolution has evoked. He records the joy Junior feels when being invited to visit Los Angeles by an adoring fan, the delight AJ exudes when being pampered by a woman he meets on Instagram, and the excitement Meezy projects when he shows Stuart his YouTube analytics. These vignettes humanize the topic at hand and remind readers of the livelihoods that are affected by the digital economy.
Unfortunately, a shortcoming of this book is its secular focus on male livelihoods. Stuart explains this omission by stating that he “didn’t meet a single woman” who “engaged in this form of digital production” (15). Though he did not connect with any women who participated in the creation of rap music, he did talk extensively about the effects of the digital economy on the social and political organization of Chicago’s South Side and could have included accounts of Black womens’ experiences in response to these changes. For example, in Chapter 6, Stuart explains that drillers have become “sexual tourist attractions” for White women seeking to abandon their “innocence” and enter the world of “experience” (164-165). However, his discussion of the sex tourism industry centers solely around the Corner Boys and fails to address how Black women have been affected by the influx of White women in their communities.
Stuart’s failure to include Black women’s narratives in this book serves to perpetuate a pattern of marginalization and silencing.
In spite of this critique, Ballad of the Bullet is a worthy read that sparks reflection about celebrity status, voyeurism, and the commodification of poverty in the context of an increasingly digital society. Stuart provides valuable insights into the role of the digital economy in reinforcing social inequalities from which therapists, violence-prevention workers, and
policy-makers can learn from to inform their interventions. He invites us to cast doubt on the perception of social media as “the great equalizer” and instead encourages us to rectify systemic inequalities through targeted reforms.