Monday, April 23, 2007

Wake up and give a shit

AAAAHHHHH!!!! no WAY! Why on earth would you sell that??? Some of those contained cell phones, and last Wednesday the lucky people who got those cellphones experienced this. That is so freaking, freaking awesome; I severely wish that I were part of it. Although, it seems to me that it would be all too easy for some crazy fanatics to turn this into something nasty. All those people who went to the surprise concert signed waivers and gave up all forms of communication with the outside world. I guess people are willing to go pretty deep into this. Open Source Resistance describes it thusly:
On April 18, 2007, Open Source Resistance hosted a gathering in LA. Musicians, artists, and ordinary people gathered in support of a simple message: speak up to defend the things that matter to you. The concert planned to end the evening was broken up by police.

If They stop you from speaking, they’re killing freedom. If you just can’t be bothered to speak, freedom will
die just the same.

Wake up and give a shit.
Year Zero has every potential to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, if only because of fanatics. Not that that's bad; I'm a fanatic myself. I think the line between the ARG and reality is blurring. I mean, have you seen all those AIR posters plastered everywhere? (I haven't; I wish I had.) Look at this:
(I swiped that from an ETS thread.) That's the tv tower at Alexanderplatz! In Berlin! And that's just one example. You should also check out the artwork that people have submitted to OSR, here. I notice a lot of them say things like "you have a voice; use it." I don't really believe this. I've never felt as though I had a voice, at least not as an individual. Individuals don't have voices; it's only when we band together that it makes a difference. Or maybe I'm wrong. I hope so.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sure you have a voice. Just email the appropriate politician. I've gotten replies from the prime minister's office on several occasions, and more from local MPs, implying that they in fact listen.

Although the surprise concert was pretty cool, I think it was irresponsible of the organizers to have it "raided by police". And it is indeed too easy for a movement to get tarnished by the actions of a few crazy or misguided people. And people are doing an awful lot of slogan-repeating that appears to possibly be becoming mindless. I hope all this amounts to some real public intelligent discussions and not just repeating of slogans.

-rt

Lapsura said...

Yeah, all those slogans are starting to irritate me. "You have a voice; how are you going to use it?" "You have a mouth; use it, make sound." "You have a voice; you know how to use it." All of those just seem ridiculous to me. Yep, you have a voice; repeat what we're saying again and again, and if we say it with enough permutations, then... well something will happen, won't it? I'm all for speaking out, but when all you're speaking out with is those words, what good is that?

Anonymous said...

That inspired me to make my own poster. Maybe I'll submit it to opensourceresistance.org



-rt

Lapsura said...

That had me laughing out loud for two minutes straight. Seriously, laughing was coming out of my face!

Tee hee, it's still making me titter!

Lapsura said...

Another thing about the staged police raid disappoints me: Open Source Resistance has the potential to be something real. People submit their artwork there, and are using it as a tool to get involved and make what difference they can. The website itself is unlike any of the others in the ARG. I don't know, I've always seen it as the real-life offshoot of the ARG. Nothing related to it should be staged, it completely detracts from its meaning.

Anonymous said...

Exactly, I agree.


It seems inconvenient to have two copies of your blog (blogger and facebook) since comments on one won't show up on the other.

-rt