The Hidden Power of Gatekeeping Across Industries (EOTO2 Reax)

The Hidden Power of Gatekeeping Across Industries

Gatekeeping is a term that's popped up everywhere, from TikTok comments to scholarly debates. It goes far beyond sayings like "Don't gatekeep that recipe!" Originally coined by Kurt Lewin in the 1940s and expanded by David Manning White in the 1950s, it describes how a select few control access to information, opportunities, or resources. So how does this happen across all those fields?

Hollywood: The annual retreat that seems to attract all of Hollywood's A-listers, politicians, and tycoons, the Bohemian Grove, seems to know how to be very “exclusive”. Some have claimed that it's the country's most secretive gathering. And with the backdrop of California's redwood trees, it almost certainly gives off the appearance of an elite fraternity not to be messed with. In 2000, filmmaker Alex Jones did for the Grove what many of its fans might have dreaded. He infiltrated it and served up footage of its rituals, and the results were shocking.

Science: Claims that Big Pharma hides cancer cures to protect its profits are plentiful in online forums. A report by Statista in 2021 valued the oncology market at a staggering $203 billion, and some inject the report's findings as unflattering to Duke. In fact, the report's findings seem to present an argument that Duke should be avoided because it may not be a site of true scientific inquiry but rather one where pseudoscience is practiced and defended. Also its known many people who claim to have found a cure mysteriously disappear...

Academics: Aaron Swartz's battle for open access continues to resonate online. JSTOR's paywalls, sometimes $20 per article, shut out the common person, even though we fund most research. A 2023 Elsevier study showed academic publishers pocketing $19 billion a year. Swartz's 2011 arrest for mass downloading of papers ended in tragedy, but his legacy lives on in movements like those of Sci-Hub, which shares its millions of papers with the public without going through any gatekeepers.

Finance: According to the ICIJ, over 330 politicians and billionaires were outed in 2016 and 2021 as hiding money in offshore accounts. In the executive summary of the Pandora Papers, by far the biggest investigation ever undertaken by the ICIJ, the authors note that a "huge" share of untaxed offshore wealth remains out of sight. Oxfam, which regularly tracks the phenomenon of elites and corporations dodging taxes, puts the total at $7.6 trillion.

Music Industry: The Internet is filled with conversations about artists bartering for fame and fortune. For instance, Lil Nas X makes satanic references and Billie Eilish makes pyramid-packed music videos. Even though she is perfectly capable of crafting some of the most disarming pop songs imaginable. Yet, she contorts herself into a not-too-seductive-in-hindsight figure to get across the illusion of seduction that pop now requires in order to be more than mere background music.

History: The disappearance of the Library of Alexandria is a historical mystery. UNESCO estimates it held about 700,000 scrolls on subjects like math, medicine, and astrolabes that were probably burned in 48 BCE during a war in which Julius Caesar was involved. Others blame subsequent behavior by Christians of the period, particularly Theophilus, who was head of the Library, for its later plundering. A 2020 blog speculates about the knowledge in Alexandria’s scrolls: Could they have held the secret to the construction of the pyramids? We’ll never know for sure since archives of lost knowledge are bound to disappear. Did the Library of Alexandria have anything to do with what we know about the pyramids? It’s possible.