Review Article Volume 7 Issue 1
1Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
22 Universidad Abierta para Adultos, Dominican Republic
Correspondence: Santiago Gallur Santorun, Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo [INTEC], Dominican Republic
Received: December 08, 2024 | Published: January 30, 2025
Citation: Santorun SG, Arias JA. Role of social media in social legitimation of violence against woman. Art Human Open Acc J. 2025;7(1):8-13. DOI: 10.15406/ahoaj.2025.07.00245
Violence against women is a serious issue in many countries all around the world. In many countries the violence is not only physical but psychological, even social, in many different ways and aspects. Particularly, in the Dominican Republic, young women´s concubinage is quite common. Civil marriages are becoming less frequent in the country and situations linked to concubinage leave young women in need of legal defense (despite the fact that it is included in the constitution) in any situation that involves going to court, since it must be proved. Thus, there is no registry of cohabiting couples and these types of relationships occur in such a way that it is common for a man to have several cohabiting relationships at the same time, even if they are legally married. All of this generates that, when there are deaths, inheritance claims, paternity claims or situations of domestic violence, an entire media paraphernalia is activated with a series of news items linked to the real or false existence of the couple. This situation is extreme in the case of the exponents of urban music in the country, since on certain occasions “fake news” or “clickbait” are generated, with the sole objective of promoting marketing strategies so that the music of said artists “sounds” and goes viral. Such is the case of the artist known as “Yailín la más viral” who became known nationally and internationally when she began a “toxic” love relationship with the Puerto Rican artist “Anuel.” Shortly after breaking this relationship, another one began with the urban artist of Mexican origin “Takashi 69”. The mutual public accusations of domestic violence, physical and verbal attacks, ended up leading to the arrest of “la más viral” in the United States, accused of violence against “Takashi 69”. All of this has caused a constant wave of attacking and defending comments against said artist, through social networks (such as YouTube) like the YouTube channel “Alofoke Radioshow”.
Keywords: Domestic violence, Social Media, Fake News, Social perception, Concubinage, Dominican Republic
Santiago Gallur Santorun, is Full Professor at the Tecnological Institute of Santo Domingo, INTEC, where he coordinates two Doctorates. For the last 16 years Gallur Santorun has been researcher in several countries such as Spain, Mexico an Dominican Republic. His latest research are focused on gender, digital communication and femicide on the Caribbean. Jenerlis Arias, is a Dominican teacher, human rights activist and lawyer specialized on immigration law, racism and human rights. Arias has been researching about gender, racism, civil and human rights in Dominican Republic publishing papers and book chapters about it.
Violence against women has become a huge problem all around the world because of the social implications that this situation has for societies in general. Femicides of women and girls are rising in many countries, even when there are policies trying to stop the phenomenon. This article approach the subject from a cultural perspective, analysis the role of social media in social legitimation of violence against woman. Particularly, common law marriage is quite normal in Dominican Republic all time is a traditional practice1 that has straight consequences in the daily women’s life. Even when there was no direct link between this practice and domestic or gender violence, in Dominican Republic both situation have quite high rates. So, thought the years there were many infructuous attempts to eradicate domestic violence against women in in the whole Latin America region and particularly in Dominican Republic.2 Using econometric methods to prevent domestic violence and punishing it objectively in the regional courts,3 creating group programs oriented to men in risk of social exclusion in Dominican Republic4 or analyzing the gender roles of woman and men in the cases of couple violence.5 Is quite common in Dominican Republic to have legal issues when a common law marriage meet its end, but normally when the men die and have a legal marriage, with a surviving widow and offspring.1,6-8 None of this is new, and based on tradition society has learn to deal with it: Assuming the diverse role that a woman has depending of the legal kind of his relationship with his couple: Depending on she is concubine or not, Dominican society recognized, through the years the existence of rights or not for woman. Linked to that, is domestic violence, all time that there is the need to prove an existing actual couple to prove violence inside it9 because there is a quite huge difference, in terms of legal consequences, depending on the existence of a real couple relationship or not.
There is definitely a problem in a society when an aggressor is identifier like one but at the same time keeps obsessing with his victim, his former partner, a Young woman.10 So, there were a historical and continuous interest on researching about the determinants factors related to gender violence in the country.11 However, the main attention is normally focused on the victim, trying to mitigate the effects of this sort of violence, in women victims of psychological abusive behavior, using psicoeducational workshops.12 It cannot be forgotten, that Dominican Republic have been characterize for the last 30 or even 40 years, for many so called “endemic problems” such as poor education13-15 and a huge growing of the non-controlled trousitic and entertainment industry, at the same time that social media consumers were growing exponentially.16 Due to that music and entertainment industry started to link, through different marketing plans that pretended reactivating commercially a key sector in the country nowadays, related to new consuming habits and new kind of digital consumers.17 Even when we could want to unlinked this situation, high rate of domestic violence against women have been the focus of many researches carried out in the last years in Dominican Republic.18 Dominican Republic has been recognized in the Caribbean for being the motherland of a new urban gender, the so called “Dem bow, dembow, dembo”.19 This gender, generated a new age in the musical industry in the country, and then a new generation of artist for the next 15 years, something that happened also in another countries like South Korea with another musical genders.20 So, social media21 started to play an important role selling this new musical genders globally.22-24 One of these strategies25 was generating interest in the new digital audience26 and social media consumers27 using fake news28-31 and ideological polarization,32 through gossip on digital platforms such as Alofoke Radio Show in Dominican Republic.33As a real and straight consequence of all the above situation explained, this fake news marketing strategies had a real impact of the “content truthfulness and source credibility on consumers’ behavioral intentions toward the advertised brands”.34 In plain words: Audience already has de commensurate suspicion that this strategy could be used anytime, anywhere and by anyone, doubting anything, only being truth, situations that are proven, by specific methodology, not to be fake news.35,36 Furthermore, has been proved that the future of social media is quite related to marketing,37 in the era of fake news,38 where is pretty tolerated lay about everything for a commercial purpose: “Mainstream Consumption of Urban Music”.39 The well documented addiction generated in the students by social media in the Latin-American context, 40 linked to the fact that fake news are a reality, even used during election time in regions like Europe.41 Moreover, the bond between “visual miss-and disinformation, social media, and democracy” are already normal.42 However, young people are not well conscious about the real mechanisms that could help to identify fake news, generating because of that a pretty low level of “awareness and credibility of information,”43 something define by experts such as: “The Multiplier Effect on the Dissemination of False Speeches on Social Networks”.44 Wanted or not, music consumption has changed forever45 with a new form of understanding the moral compass: What’s right and what’s wrong. Music production isn’t anymore a local business only, but an international one,46 thanks to social media, the new way of consumerism, and the news trends on “marketing strategies on social media platforms.”47 This is why we need to research about this case of study: “Yailín La Más Viral” and “Tekashy 69” on Youtube channel “Alofoke Radioshow”. We have the opportunity to understand the real consequences that the new marketing strategies have over the digital social media audience’s moral compass.
The objective of the study is to understand the opinion of social media users in the Dominican Republic about the rights of young women living with gender-based violence, based on local YouTube social media channel Alofoke Radio Show published on the subject. In particular, we will focus, through a case study, on the comments of social media users on the news published about gender-based violence in the aforementioned relationship. This situation is extreme in the case of urban music exponents in the country, as on certain occasions “fake news” or “clickbait” is generated, with the sole objective of promoting marketing strategies so that the music of the aforementioned artists “sounds” and goes viral. This is the case of the artist known as “Yailín la más viral” who became known nationally and internationally after starting a “toxic” and violent love relationship with the artist “Takashi 69”. The methodology chosen was the content analysis of the Alofoke Radio Show videos in which Yailín “La más viral” and the American artist “Takashi 69”, were both invited or just mentioned. Since 2020, the name of Yailín “La más viral” was mentioned repeatly in the YouTube podcast Alofoke Radio Show, being one of the Dominican artist more mentioned, as it can be proved in his Web site https://www.youtube.com/@Alofokeradioshow/videos
It can be found in the Alofoke Radio Show YouTube channel thousands of videos that have from a few hundreds to 200 thousand views, as a normal rate. However, since May 2023, where rumors about Yailín “La más viral” being girlfriend of “Takashi 69” the numbers went to the roof up to 4.749.570 views. This maximum number of views was reached june 17th 2023, when Tekashi 6ix9ine and Yailin “La más viral” were presented to the “world” as a couple in the Alofoke Radio Show, reaching 213.000 likes and the humongus figure of 13.776 comments. So, for the last ten months, the relationship between Yailin “La más viral” and Tekashi 6ix9ine was a phenomenon on social media, capable of getting the attention of millions of people all around the world, due to the popularity of the American artist.The methodology used to conduct this research was select from the thousands of videos contented on the Alofoke Radio Show Youtube channel, only the ones related to the very relationship between Yailín “La más viral” being girlfriend of “Takashi 69”. That led us to 16 videos. This videos were studied following very specific criteria
The videos selected, using the criteria stated before, were the following ones about the couple, from the most recent to the last one:
Title: “Sos Youtube Maraton Tekashi Para Que Le Devuelven La Guagua A Yailin”
Number of views: 600.000 views
Number of likes: 40.000 likes
Number of comments: 1,594 comments
Subtitle: “Suscribete!!! Suscribete!!! Luego de que IRS de Estados Unidos incautarán algunos carros de lujos de Tekashi, fue también incautada la guagua Mercedes Benz de Yailin La Más Viral en República Dominicana. ¿Esta la pareja arcoiris en bancarrota? “.
Title: “Wanda Madre De Yailin Revela Detonante Porque La Botaron De La Casa”
Number of views: 1.358.682 views
Number of likes: 71.000 Likes
Number of comments: 10,966 comments
Subtitle: “Suscribete!!! Suscribete!!! Wanda madre de la artista Yailin La Mas Viral y la comunicadora Mami Kim habla por por primera vez se sus hijas en camara. Ofrece detalles sobre la demanda en justicia al rapero Tekashi 69 y su ex nuero Anuel.”
Title: “Llamada De Urgengia De Yailin Pidiendo Ayuda A Alofoke Mientras Tekashi La Golpea”
Number of views: 2,325,995 views
Number of likes: 85.000 likes
Number of comments: 11,254 comments
Subtitle: “Suscribete!!! Suscribete!!! Llamada de Yailin La Mas Viral llamando a Alofoke en busca de ayuda mientras Tekashi 69 la agrege en su residencia en Miami.”
Title: “Tekashi 6ix9ine & Yailin Hablan Al Mundo Juntos Por Primera Vez (Alofoke Radio Show Live)”
Number of views: 4.749.570 views
Number of likes: 213.000 likes
Number of comments: 13,765 comments.
Subtitle: Bienvenido a " Suscribete!!! Suscribete!!! Alofoke Radio Show" donde podrás disfrutar entrevistas exclusivas de artistas como The subtitle says: “Bad Bunny, Ozuna, El Alfa, también puedes ver entrevistas políticas como a nuestro Presidente Luis Abinader, también el ex presidente Hipólito Mejía y mas. Hablamos de música, analizamos y debatimos también interés general.”.
Title: “Wanda Mama De Yailin Revela Pago Por Un Beso De La Mami Kim”
Number of views: 76,784 views
Number of likes: 3.100 likes
Number of comments: 297 comments
Subtitle: “Wanda madre de Yailin La Mas Viral y La Mami Kim hace tremenda revelaciones en esta entrevista exclusiva con Santiago Matias.”.
Title: “La Llamada De La Mama De Yailin Que Hunde A Tekashi”
Number of views: 911.770 views
Number of likes: 51.000 likes
Number of comments: 3,935 comments
Subtitle: “Santiago Matias Alofoke habla sobre un complot para sacar el show del teatro de Villa Juana.”
Title: “Ascenso Y Caida De Tekashi Por Andar Detras Del Locu 🍑 De Yailin”
Number of views: 1.000.436 views
Number of likes: 59.000 likes
Number of comments: 2.938 comments.
Subtitle: “El regreso de El Despeluñe con Dj Topo donde habla de la llegada sorpresa de Tekashi a la 42 de Capotillo donde estaba grabando un video Yailin La Mas Viral”.
Title: Vayan Preparandose Mentalmente Cuando Vean Esto De Yailin Y Tekashi 6ix9ine”
Number of views: 993,000 views
Number of likes: 38.000 likes
Number of comments: 6.182 comments
Subtitle: “Suscribete!!! Suscribete!!!Bienvenido a "Alofoke Radio Show" donde podrás disfrutar entrevistas exclusivas de artistas como Bad Bunny, Ozuna, El Alfa, también puedes ver entrevistas políticas como a nuestro Presidente Luis Abinader, también el ex presidente Hipólito Mejía y mas. Hablamos de música, analizamos y debatimos también interés general.”
Title: “Yailin La Mas Viral Desmiente A Los Opinadores En Entrevista Exclusiva”
Number of views: 1.094.106 views
Number of likes: 53.000 likes
Number of comments: 10,484 comments
Subtitle: “Suscribete!!! Suscribete!!!Bienvenido a "Alofoke Radio Show" donde podrás disfrutar entrevistas exclusivas de artistas como Bad Bunny, Ozuna, El Alfa, también puedes ver entrevistas políticas como a nuestro Presidente Luis Abinader, también el ex presidente Hipólito Mejía y mas. Hablamos de música, analizamos y debatimos también interés general.”
Title: “Publicista De Yailin Vs Ali David Se Dicen De Todo (Pone Rapida A Vitaly Sanchez)”
Number of views: 899,164 views
Number of likes: 39.000 likes
Number of comments: 10,832 comments.
Subtitle: “Suscribete!!! Suscribete!!!Bienvenido a "Alofoke Radio Show" donde podrás disfrutar entrevistas exclusivas de artistas como Bad Bunny, Ozuna, El Alfa, también puedes ver entrevistas políticas como a nuestro Presidente Luis Abinader, también el ex presidente Hipólito Mejía y mas. Hablamos de música, analizamos y debatimos también interés general”.
Title: “Debemos Defender A Yailin La Mas Viral Frente A Esto (Alofoke Radio Show Live)”
Number of views: 1.071.899 views
Number of likes: 54.000 likes
Number of comments: 5,131 comments
Subtitle: “Suscribete!!! Suscribete!!!Bienvenido a "Alofoke Radio Show" donde podrás disfrutar entrevistas exclusivas de artistas como Bad Bunny, Ozuna, El Alfa, también puedes ver entrevistas políticas como a nuestro Presidente Luis Abinader, también el ex presidente Hipólito Mejía y mas. Hablamos de música, analizamos y debatimos también interés general.”
Title: “600 Mil Dolares En Regalos De Tekashi 6ix9ine Para Yailin”
Number of views: 977.294 views
Number of likes: 34.000 likes
Number of comments: 477 comments
Subtitle: “Suscribete!!! Suscribete!!! Bienvenido a "Alofoke Radio Show" donde podrás disfrutar entrevistas exclusivas de artistas como Bad Bunny, Ozuna, El Alfa, también puedes ver entrevistas políticas como a nuestro Presidente Luis Abinader, también el ex presidente Hipólito Mejía y mas. Hablamos de música, analizamos y debatimos también interés general.”.
Title: “Tekashi 6ix9ine Rapidisimo Con Yailin La Mas Viral - La Dulce Venganza (El Despeluñe Con Dj Topo)” Number of views: 898.000 views
Number of likes: 29.000 likes
Number of comments: 3,447 comments
Subtitle: “Suscribete!!! Suscribete!!!Bienvenido a "Alofoke Radio Show" donde podrás disfrutar entrevistas exclusivas de artistas como Bad Bunny, Ozuna, El Alfa, también puedes ver entrevistas políticas como a nuestro Presidente Luis Abinader, también el ex presidente Hipólito Mejía y mas. Hablamos de música, analizamos y debatimos también interés general.”
Title: “Tekashi 6ix9ine Le Hizo Creer A Yailin Que Estaba En Miami, Diamond La Mafia Se Destapa” Number of views: 1.506.012 views
Number of likes: 59.000 likes
Number of comments: 11,728 comments
Subtitle: “El artista Diamond La Mafia ofrece declaraciones exclusiva sobre problema de Tekashi en La Vega en Republica Dominicana en búsqueda de Yailin La Mas Viral luego supuestamente terminar noviazgo con el artista nacido en Nueva York.”
Title: “Yailin La Mas Esperada En La Alfombra Roja De Premios Heats”
Number of views: 35.363 views
Number of likes: 2.200 likes
Number of comments: 66 comentarios
Subtitle: “Suscribete!!! Suscribete!!!Bienvenido a "Alofoke Radio Show" donde podrás disfrutar entrevistas exclusivas de artistas como Bad Bunny, Ozuna, El Alfa, también puedes ver entrevistas políticas como a nuestro Presidente Luis Abinader, también el ex presidente Hipólito Mejía y mas. Hablamos de música, analizamos y debatimos también interés general.”
Title: “Tekashi 6ix9ine Se Confiesa Luego De Su Salida De Prision En La Vega (Alofoke Radio)”
Number of views: 2.497.418 views
Number of likes: 109.000 likes
Number of comments: 10,205 comments
Subtitle: “Tekashi 6ix9ine habla por primera vez de experiencia y salida de prisión en la ciudad de La Vega en Republica Dominicana. Suscríbete y activa la campana de notificaciones! “.
The main global results show that the couple Yailín “La Más Viral” and “Tekashy 69” generated more than 20 million views (20.996.093), over 800 thousand likes (805.000) and more than 100 thousand comments (103.295). Paradoxicaly, once analysed, the 103.295 comments the results were quite surprising because the audience do not use this opportunity to express normally a opinion about the famous couple of artist but: To greet someone, to make advertisement of a business, to use emojis, to say “funny things” or even by the Alofoke Radio Show owner to say phrases that intends to motivate general comments, for instance, offering money: “El que comente y le de like a este video que deje su paypal o cuenta en este comentario ahora“.So, analyzing exclusively the results, It can be stated whitout any doubt that the couple Yailín “La Más Viral” and “Tekashy 69” generates the engagement of the audience by three different kind of data: Number of views, number of likes and by far, number of comments. However, this comments normally show that the audience do not believe any word shown on the show, but understand it just as a entertainment, even when they are talking about a pretty serious topic such as domestic violence, were police arrests, legal demands, judicial process and court hearings.
As we stated before through different sources concubinage among young women is very common in the Dominican Republic. Civil marriages are becoming less and less frequent in the country and situations linked to concubinage leave them in a situation of legal defence (despite it being provided for in the Constitution) in the face of any situation that involves going to court, as this must be demonstrated. This situation is extreme in the case of urban music exponents in the country, as on certain occasions “fake news” or “clickbait” is generated, with the sole objective of promoting marketing strategies so that the music of the aforementioned artists “sounds” and goes viral. This is the case of the artist known as “Yailín la más viral” who became known nationally and internationally after starting a “toxic” and violent love relationship with the artist “Takashi 69”. All of this has caused a constant wave of attack and defence comments against the aforementioned artist, through local media social networks, particularly Youtube in a Show called Alofoke Radio Show. The objective of the study was to understand the opinion of social media users in the Dominican Republic about the rights of young women living with gender-based violence, based on local news published on the subject. In particular, we focused, through a case study, on the comments of social media users on the news published about gender-based violence in the aforementioned relationship. This sort of marketing strategies, and many others, are so common on this Youtube “podcast” Alofoke Radio Show, such as: clickbait, fake news, post-truth, threats, coursing explicit language and so on and so forth. Based on the above, a part of society trivializes the aforementioned gender-based violence and identifies it with music marketing strategies. The object of study were the opinions of social media users about violence against young women, in particular, about an urban artist. It is noteworthy that on several occasions it has been demonstrated that this couple of artists uses allegations of gender violence and their arrest as marketing strategies to make their songs “sound” in the Latin context. This sort of strategies are so common in the so called Youtube podcast In the Dominican Republic called Alofoke Radio Show. To conclude it can be stated without any doubt that the marketing strategy to generate all kind of comments was successful, following the logical statement of: “As long as people keep talking about you, you could care less if it is all negative!” The level of popularity of “Yailín la más viral” and the American artist “Takashi 69” was not only uprising but generating thousands of views, likes and all kind of comments in Alofoke Radio Show, letting the podcast “monetizing” all the attention put on this couple artist. Was that a marketing strategy promoting by the artist or the owner of the Youtube podcast? This research never intended to answer this question. However, it was sufficiently proved that this couple of artist and their “toxic” relationship, not only generates views but engagement of the public with the show in which they are as guest or even just being mentioned. Of course, the comments not only take the big issue of domestic violence as a joke, with all kinds of “extreme” comments about it that justify it, but accused the couple of acting all the dramatically violent videos shown on social media about it, even when there were police arrests, legal demands, judicial process and court hearing, both locally in Dominican Republic and internationally in the United Stated.
None.
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
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