Claudia Arruñada: Algorithm promotes luxury, not payroll wages

By Ray Dombrowski · Reporting from Youngstown · August 6, 2026

The story of César Gastélum’s death in Culiacán is not about a single gunman or a local dispute; it’s about what happens when the load-bearing institution—the state's ability to…

Luxury, Algorithm, and the Absence of a Payroll

The story of César Gastélum’s death in Culiacán is not about a single gunman or a local dispute; it’s about what happens when the load-bearing institution—the state's ability to regulate commerce and enforce law—simply fails. On Tuesday night, Gastélum was shot point-blank outside a fast-food restaurant while livestreaming. The video evidence, viewed by The Associated Press and reported widely by La Times, shows him laughing with friends when two men on a motorcycle pulled up. One man fired the fatal shots.

When you audit this kind of violence, you don't find motive in mere rivalry; you find an economic vacuum. The local prosecutor’s office stated that its investigation included posts Gastélum had published, "some of which refer to a criminal group." This is not coincidence. It is the pattern: when legitimate commerce—the steady work, the regulated market—seizes up, power doesn't vanish; it gets privatized and brutalized.

The Illusion of Meteoric Success

The narrative surrounding Gastélum’s life, as detailed by The Guardian and BBC, was one of manufactured luxury: expensive cars, nightlife trips, comedy clips. Claudia Arruñada, a communications expert at Mexico's Iberoamerican University, nailed the structural rot when she stated that "The [social media] algorithm and the narcos promote the same thing: consumption and luxury as ultimate values, to be achieved in the quickest way possible."

This isn’t just commentary on TikTok; it’s an audit of modern aspiration. The model for success is no longer based on methodically working a career—the kind that generates reliable payroll—but rather on having a "meteoric rise." This hyper-accelerated, visible wealth creates the perfect commodity: not goods, but attention. And attention, in this context, becomes currency for non-state actors.

The cartels are suggested to function like multinational corporations, using content creators as community managers to promote their "brand." They aren't just killing people; they are managing a supply chain of spectacle and fear. The pamphlets dropped from an aircraft in January 2025, accusing dozens of influencers of links to specific cartel factions—La Mayiza versus Los Chapitos—are not political statements. They are brand management directives.

When the State Becomes Irrelevant

The sheer scale of this failure demands a historical parallel. This situation echoes the Prohibition-era organized crime conflict (1920–1933). In both instances, the state created an explicit prohibition on legitimate commerce—alcohol in one case, and reliable economic structure in another. When the government fails to regulate or enforce the established market, a vacuum of power opens up.

The shared mechanism is undeniable: parallel criminal economies rush into that void, establishing their own brutal, self-governing rules of exchange, enforcement, and hierarchy. They don't need licenses; they just need territory and desperation. The cartels are not merely opponents of the law; they are temporary replacements for the state’s economic function.

Auditing the Aftermath

President Claudia Sheinbaum has vowed that authorities will find those who ordered Gastélum’s death, demanding that "the perpetrators must be arrested." But arrest is a clean number on a spreadsheet; it doesn't rebuild infrastructure or guarantee stable wages for twenty-two-year-olds. The fact remains that while the official figures suggest murders fell by 48% in 2025, they do not account for the economic cost of living under constant threat—the lost payrolls, the shuttered businesses, the permanent anxiety baked into every transaction.

The system is rigged to reward visibility and rapid consumption over stable labor. The violence isn't a side effect; it’s the primary mechanism by which these groups maintain their market dominance.

Claudia Arruñada: Algorithm promotes luxury, not payroll wages

Luxury, Algorithm, and the Absence of a Payroll

The Illusion of Meteoric Success

When the State Becomes Irrelevant

Auditing the Aftermath

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