A new type of fandom has emerged in the modern era. Today, people join massive fan clubs with members from all over the world. Thanks to digital technology, news spreads fast and memes go viral.
Photos, videos, and cultural products instantly reach audiences through the internet, social media, and streaming platforms. As a result, New Zealand has become an iconic destination, attracting visitors from every corner of the globe.
Join the NZ Casino Online team as they explore Kiwi products that capture the world’s attention in an instant. From mythical landscapes to free chip no deposit NZ platforms, online buzz spreads like wildfire, turning cultures into ever-shifting concepts.
Moving Cultures
Globalisation has changed how we experience and create culture. The anthropologist Ulf Hannerz argues that communities with the level of interconnectedness we witness today can no longer rely on national and local understandings of culture. He offers the concepts of boundary-crossings and long-distance cultural flows as a perspective on how cultures influence each other in contemporary times.
Popular culture is a new object of study, since the tastes of ordinary people were neglected for centuries. The 19th and 20th centuries opened up research and understanding of pop culture through the evolution of trends in music, fashion, movies, and books. Technology allowed access to many previously marginalised groups, which both democratised and complicated the way we see culture and society. New Zealand, as a location, has come to mean many things to people from different parts of the world.
So, how does Kiwi culture travel, and what are its most famous products? Read on to find out.
Fantastic Landscapes
The beauty of New Zealand was previously only revealed to those lucky enough to live or travel there, which was challenging for many. However, the distant and, for many, exotic location has become recognisable worldwide through the popularity of iconic movies and TV shows.
Middle-Earth and Xena
J.R.R. Tolkien’s mythical Middle-earth had started connecting global fandom after its quick popularity as a book series in the 1960s. For a long time, each fan imagined the fantasy land as they saw fit, but it was an unreachable, otherworldly place. The movie trilogy from the early 2000s changed that forever.
Nowadays, most of us think of Middle-earth as New Zealand, since that is where the movies were shot. Those old enough to remember the 90s perhaps think of New Zealand as ancient Greece, which is the setting of popular shows Hercules and Xena: Warrior Princess.
Peter Jackson’s movies represent a British product wrapped in a Kiwi package, now inseparable from any vision of Middle-earth. The 90s TV shows exemplify how an American director reimagined ancient Europe with his own, New Zealand-inspired twist.
In both cases, we are dealing with distant concepts that the real location of New Zealand has come to embody. This transcends the original settings it was meant to represent, as well as its physical reality, and becomes a hybrid cultural product.
Ash vs Evil Dead
This horror-comedy, based on the iconic movie directed by Sam Raimi, is filmed in New Zealand, as is Wellington Paranormal, a spin-off from the movie What We Do in the Shadows. Due to its unique aesthetics, New Zealand is often used in fantastic visual storytelling.
Crime Shows: The Brokenwood Mysteries
The Brokenwood Mysteries is an example of a cosy whodunit series that takes place in New Zealand and is a Kiwi product. In the fashion of British and American detective dramas, the show has become popular among genre lovers everywhere. Unlike the other entries we have mentioned that take advantage of the NZ landscape to frame a fantastical world, this series offers a glimpse into actual life. It gives us characters that include the local Māori natives, which brings New Zealand’s cultural and historical reality closer to global audiences.
The Allure of Memes
Memes are one of the most popular and fastest-spreading phenomena. It consists of short, comic-style images or videos that showcase characters, landscapes, or unique situations and interactions.Sometimes, they reflect cultural stereotypes and are meant to be funny, but with just a small amount of truth behind the joke.The person who coined the term, British biologist Richard Dawkins, described them as ideas, behaviours, or styles that quickly spread within a culture. Contemporary global memes encompass a variety of motifs, and Kiwi culture, imaginary or real, is just as heavily featured as anything else.
Despite the fact that Kiwi-inspired pop cultural content is not always a real expression of the culture, it often serves to inspire people’s interest in the actual place and has done wonders for New Zealand tourism. The fast exchange of communication between different parts of the world reimagines each location and transforms every cultural product.
NZ Online Casinos
The online gambling industry has revolutionised the world of global gaming in multiple ways. The internet connection provided a more inclusive, accessible, and convenient environment for individuals from all over the world. Some of the well-known NZ casinos include Ruby Fortune, Dragon Slots, and Cashwin Casino.
“Although there is always an issue of location restrictions, many online gambling platforms welcome global customers. The lockdown period was significant for the adjustment and higher availability of online casinos,” explains Isabella Pritchard, gambling expert and author at NZ Casino Online.
Conclusion
The powerful combination of digital technology and swift communication channels has created a significant shift in how we envision, experience, and share culture. Even distant locations have found their influence over the global audience.
New Zealand has profited from the movie industry, which has served as the setting for many huge TV and cinema franchises. The fantastical and imaginary worlds inspired by real locations sparked the passions of fandoms all over the world. This creates a new form of tourism and serves as a foundation for a newfound interest in the real-life culture of the actual place.
The rapid sharing of memes, participation in various fandoms via social media, and the internet in general have changed the way we perceive culture. This allowed new cultural exchanges, alongside the creation of hybrid and fluid cultural concepts.
