“La Tia Visantica” wears a bathrobe, has curlers, ‘Un, dos, tres’ stewardess glasses and has an opinion about everything. He comments on the King’s speech at Christmas, buys at “Chein” (for Shein) and makes purchases at the town store… Ana Muñoz Arastell, the comedian behind the profile, uses local, traditional humor that pays homage to the town ladies with a peculiar accent in Valencian who already accumulates 546,000 followers on Instagram and another 313,000 on TikTok. For her work, she was awarded Creator of the Year at the “II Contingut Creation Gala in Valencia”, promoted by the Poblet.info platform.
Behind this initiative are two students of Audiovisual Communication at the Universitat Jaume I of Castelló, Xavier Oliver and Aitor Muñoz. The latter, a young man from Altea, a Valencian speaker, who also creates content in his native language with his profile “Llet i vi” and who has become one of those new young Valencian influencers who seek the complicity of local users on networks like Instagram or YouTube.
Muñoz started in the pandemic to show that there were people who “did things in Valencian and that were also cool. He had read an article about the most successful Valencian streamers and none of them worked in Valencian, … and there were “, Explain. So for the creators – “so that they could find each other and form a community” – and for the public, he created Poblet.info, a platform that brings together the nearly 240 social profiles, media and spaces that create content on the internet in their own language. The space has served as a springboard for him to give talks, participate in round tables or conferences at institutes, a task of which he is proud because, he defends, “our objective is to ensure professionalization.”
This vocation includes the statistical analysis of the creation of content in Valencian on social networks that, in its annual balance, reviews the channels of Valencian YouTubers such as Aina Monferrer, who has a great growth in followers in this last year. She is a doctoral assistant professor at the Faculty of Teaching of the University of Valencia and on the Internet she offers relaxed videos to prepare for the official Valencian exams.
“In my opinion, the use of Valencian on social networks is constantly growing, but it is true that it is going at a slow pace taking into account the speed of the networks,” argues Muñoz, who in his analysis points out that both the platforms’ algorithms such as the “self-hatred that so many Valencians have when communicating in these spaces” penalize the language. An ecosystem that grows, without institutional support, he points out, contrary to what happens, for example, in Catalonia. “Neither before nor now has there been official support; the Valencian on social networks depends on us, it is emerging voluntarily and, if we stopped it, we would be left with two or three,” says the young man.
For the “II Contingut Creation Gala in Valencia” promoted by Poblet.info with the support of the Ciutadania i Comunicació Association (Acicom), some of the creators who share a goal with Muñoz paraded, such as “Alegria del poble”, the profile revelation of said gala that a few days ago he explained in a reel that contains content in Valencian “because it is my mother tongue, a language that I appreciate and admire.” Muñoz comments on him that these last days of the year he is growing a lot in followers, “with more than two million visits in the last month. His is a profile that seeks to normalize the language”, a task for which, he believes, they are working many.
Fran Tudela as Cabrafotuda (116,000 followers on Instagram) or Josep Xavier Rico as Apitxat (147,000 followers on IG) are profiles in Valencian that publish local content. The latter, who went viral for defending the unity of the Catalan language with a hand-to-hand video with the Catalan Albert Pagà (@berti_iau en redes), has participated in campaigns by the Linguistic Normalization Cabinet of the Valencia City Council. Cabrafotuda, por ejemplo, had its own section in the program We could do it better from À Punt.
TeteJunior and Simmer_Valenciana on Twitch or the parkineo podcasts, El Dolcet Pal Cafè, Greuges Pendents, Gent Ràndom, Club Babalà, Baix la Luna and Open Doors are other references on social networks. Parkineo de hecho has just won the award for Best Podcast of the Year at the “I Gala de Pòdcast en Valencian”, held this past week.
And there must be a pool, because more than 500 young people from 40 institutes have participated in the second edition of the audiovisual content creation contest in Catalan organized by the AMIC through the live video platform Twitch. The young people, 126 of them from the Valencian Community, have discussed topics such as the universe of video games, the narration of their games, current news, curiosities from various Catalan-speaking territories, gastronomy, tradition and culture, among others. The winners will be announced in the coming weeks.
