Post

Rami Ismail (رامي)
@ramiismail.com

It's a word commonly used in US parlance, I think. One of the hosts used it when I was talking about hoping the industry will fracture into more defined parts, each taking care of their own and setting goals relative to one another - instead of one big place competing for monster hits.

Jordan Carlson
@jordantcarlson.bsky.social

The other host may have been using it wrong - it’s a fairly loaded term that arose from the dissolution of Yugoslavia and is usually used to describe a violent, sharply divided, acrimonious collapse into multiple groups that fight each other. (It is common in US English but it’s also controversial)

Andrew 🇿🇦 Davis
@thrownintosol.bsky.social

Yes. It's an early 20th century term, but what happened to Yugoslavia in the early 90s when it broke up and became 6 separate nation-states is the best example. To balkanize is to just break things up into separate/independent parts. :)