Poverty is a reality, unfortunately, all too common in our America and in even more distant latitudes. However, it often tends to be underrepresented in media analyses of the region, with the clear exception of a group of countries, such as Venezuela or Cuba, where, on the contrary, its representation is enhanced, presenting it as a clear symptom of the failure, always inevitable, of socialism.
In the case of Cuba, for some time now a hemorrhage of “influencers” have begun to deal with the reality of the island, supposedly to reveal some essence of the country, but all saying the same thing.
An excellent platform to observe what we have just mentioned could be Youtube. In this gigantic social network, in the last few years, materials whose fundamental contents are related to travel and gastronomy have become very popular. The predominant focus in these audiovisuals is to highlight the exoticism of the diverse experiences with which the “youtubers” are confronted, from typical dishes to cultural exchanges. Poverty, when it appears, is only a decoration, part of the reality described, such as buildings, cafes, street food stalls, etc.
This changes completely when these content producers come to Cuba. The focus of the material then becomes fundamentally political and tourism takes a back seat. They all go on to show you “the reality that the dictatorship does not want you to see” or “the true reality of an island stopped in time” and they all claim to have been persecuted and censored in some way, despite the fact that the contents they publish seem to contradict this claim: recorded anywhere in Havana or Cuba, with interviewees who give their opinion as they wish, predominantly, of course, those who are critical of the system.
While tours of other parts of Latin America and the world privilege the presentation of not infrequently luxurious tourist experiences (a trip on a six thousand dollar train ticket, meals at buffets or restaurants with bills of more than a hundred dollars, stays in resorts or paradisiacal beaches) in the case of Cuba, the aesthetics of pornomiseria is privileged, something not at all original, since it is the representation that has prevailed in the hegemonic media at least since the 90s of the last century. To this end, the videos are full of views of poor neighborhoods, crumbling buildings, garbage dumps and other scenes of everyday life in a poor third world country. The peculiarity is that, in the case of Cuba, these scenes are, it is claimed, evidence of the failure of the political project. And, of course, when they film in hotels or restaurants, they take care to clarify that these are not places that the Cuban people usually visit.
The popular Mexican “influencer” Luisito Comunica, with more than 44 million followers, was in Cuba this year 2025 and released a group of videos about the island, headed by an initial long audiovisual presentation, quite basic in its exposition and with a high political charge. It is interesting to note that Luisito is famous, among other things, because his materials are quite unprejudiced, the communication is simple and pleasant and he avoids talking about politics. The latter has been accomplished in materials ranging from Uganda to South Korea and from Serbia to Peru.
But one of the unwritten rules of communication on hegemonic platforms is that there is a group of countries that can only be represented in certain ways, under penalty of suffering shadowban (that is, a reduction in the scope of the profile), complaints of countless troll accounts that endanger the user's own account or, directly, the warning of the platform for considering that your content does not meet the standards of the community. This is the case, for example, of Russia, China, Venezuela, Nicaragua, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and, of course, Cuba. To talk about these countries, it is important that the negative presentation predominates, according to strictly pre-established parameters.
In the case of Cuba, these parameters can be roughly summarized as follows: overrepresentation of poverty, giving voice only to a specific sector of the Cuban people critical of or opposed to the project, the discourse of dictatorship and repression, and zero mention of the U.S. blockade.
If these rules are not followed to the letter, the creator may have to face, in addition to the consequences mentioned above, the attacks of countless real or troll accounts, which do not accept any other vision of the island than the hegemonic discourse. A pressure that not infrequently achieves its results.
Returning to the example of Luisito Comunica, one of the videos he published in that series on Cuba was about street food in Havana, something that is common in the materials he produces. For this he consumed, among other things, several sweets that are part of the daily life of the Cuban people. He tasted what we call “coquitos”, because they are made with coconut candy, “churros”, made of wheat flour fried with sugar and condensed milk, and a “bocadito de helado”, something that is sold and consumed in each and every neighborhood in Cuba.
Soon after, an avalanche of comments on the video affirmed the opposite. And those sweets became, in that discourse, extraordinary privileges of an elite, just like the “guarapo”, sugar cane juice and the economic “cheese pizzas”, daughters of popular ingenuity and widely consumed by the people. The logic is clear. For the hegemonic narrative it is not enough to present the reality of a country, even one as battered as that of today's Cuba, but it is necessary to present a “truth” that complements and develops the unique narrative about the island. Although he paid the ideological toll, Luisito did not stick strictly to the narrative and paid a price for it. As a result of the pressures, shortly after publishing the aforementioned video, he published another one apologizing and regretting having hurt the sensibilities of the Cuban people who were going hungry. Something that, by the way, he has never done before despite visiting some of the poorest countries in the world.
Of course, Luisito's case is not unique, nor is it the worst. His representation of Cuba was even decent, compared to other less influential youtubers, such as the Spanish JDalmau, to give another example. This discourse of the “influencers” complements the ideological education given by the hegemonic media, to shape in the minds of the young and not so young a single truth: the only poverty that should be represented is that of socialism. Thus, the system is made invisible, its effects are hidden and a totally unfair and negative perspective of the reality of a country like Cuba is formed.
In this green alligator of 10 million people we have, without a doubt, extraordinary political and economic challenges to overcome, starting with the immoral and illegal U.S. blockade. We have poverty, contradictions, a social justice project hit by the crisis that must be saved at any cost, and we also have beautiful landscapes, noble, warm and good people, the best tobacco in the world and the best coffee that is the perfect place for long and pleasant chats. We have a vibrant culture, a history of struggle, extraordinary dancers, a very own humor, desacralizing and irreverent and a thunderous way of laughing that is noticeable everywhere. We have blackouts and corruption and we also have an immense solidarity, which has saved countless lives in the world. Cuba, like any country, has its lights and shadows, but it is far from that totally negative Manichean representation.
This is the island of which Nicolás Guillén said: “Oh Cuba, my voice I give you/my heart I give you! The island of Martí, of Fidel, of Che, of Benny, of Bola de Nieve, of Wifredo Lam, of Haydee Santamaría, of Fina García and so many other extraordinary Cubans. The island of “Fatherland or Death!” that for more than 67 years has stood up, at a very high price, to U.S. imperialism. But the hegemonic media and the overabundance of “influencers” who reproduce the single neoliberal thought will never tell you that. The truth, as in the Platonic myth of the cave, is a search that truly begins when we turn our backs on the multiple representations that want to pass us off as reality.
