1. Consider the following:
1. On the subway in New York, in an authoritative tone: ‘Ladies, and gentlemen, soliciting
money in subways is illegal. We ask you not to give’. If you haven’t heard this sentence
before, it is bizarre and rotten.
If you hear this sentence every ten minutes, on every subway, everyday, it is banal and
regular. The quoted sentence no longer consciously encourages you to disregard other
citizens, it becomes background noise on your commute. Over time you may even agree
with the insidious message. You can’t give a dollar to every case of desperation you see.
You shouldn’t reward street performance. You’re going to work, why can’t they?
2. On a train in Melbourne, a young man is listening to music and dancing. It is a Sunday
morning, approximately 9 AM. He is high, but he is hurting no one. Two young girls begin
filming him from afar. They are expressionless. It is likely that this is a spectacle to be used
as currency on social media. It is likely that the young girls are not engaging in conscious
cruelty; they grew up with websites that often frame sadness as slapstick.
3. In 2009, Burger King launched its popular ‘Whopper Sacrifice’ promotion, offering a free
Whopper burger to customers who deleted ten friends via a Burger King Facebook app.
Typically, no notifications are sent when you delete a Facebook friend. However in this
instance, a humorous notification was automated to your chosen ten. The campaign was
brought to an end by concerns within Facebook that the notifications disrupted users’
privacy expectations. By all accounts, it was a successful advertising venture.
4. Evan Spiegel, founder of prominent social media app Snapchat, is worth an estimated
$2.1 billion. He is dating Miranda Kerr; Australian supermodel, mother, author of Treasure
Yourself by Miranda Kerr and Empower Yourself by Miranda Kerr. He is the 25 year old son
of two prominent Los Angeles lawyers, and is described as one of the most successful
entrepreneurs of our time.
5. Julian Assange is an Australian hacker, activist and founder of Wikileaks. Wikileaks is a
whistleblowing organisation, most notable for their release of the Afghan War Diaries and
Iraq War Logs. Wikileaks has ensured that ordinary people can no longer feign ignorance
to long suspected ugly truths. Julian is sitting in a small room in an Ecuadorian embassy.
He has not seen sunlight in four years. A man of 44, his hair is an unusual stark white.
Julian is an experiment of an extraordinary form of censure; he is slowly being rendered
irrelevant. Remembered heroically by those on his side of politics, it is nonetheless difficult
for them to continue involving him in the public conversation. His is a slow, painless and
modern form of torture; his choice is between moral defeat and mortal danger.
Consider the following:
1. In 2016, Duncan Storrar, Australian citizen identifying as disabled and of low socio-
economic status, asked a question about income inequality on the public broadcaster.
Kelly O’Dwyer, LNP Senator, bafflingly used his concerns as a segway to discuss a
café owners $6,000 toaster. Slavoj Zizek wrote that ‘every ruling ideology can only
function if it doesn’t say it all’. O’Dwyer said too much. In her bubbling, she revealed
how fundamentally out of touch she was with Storrar and those who Storrar represents.
Collective hysteria ensued, and Storrar was ridiculed on the front page of Murdoch-owned
daily newspapers for three consecutive days. Private, painful details of his life were
revealed. The public responded by raising Storrar $60,051 in a crowd funding campaign.
2,381 people internationally donated. Kierkegaard considered the link between chance and
the need to choose. First comes the miracle of the encounter, and then your response to
it. The image of Duncan Storrar rarely reaches a national audience. Australia’s response
suggests a fundamental opposition to the morality of the mainstream media, and to
politicians such as O’Dwyer. In a public statement one week later, Duncan said ‘Now to
the wonderful people of Australia I’d like to thank you for my support.’
2. In 2015, in a small town in Western Australia, 56km from the capital Perth, a 20 year old
woman was fined $500 for stealing a box of tampons, valued at $6.75. Amy Rust, the
founder of Essentials 4 Women SA, began a crowd-funding campaign with a $500 goal. It
reached $3,956.75 from 229 donors.
3. In 2014 on Twitter, the hashtag #IllStandWithYou trends as a gesture of solidarity with
Muslims feeling isolated in a community shaken by the Sydney siege. The hashtag
allegedly began as a Facebook post from Brisbane woman Rachael Jacob, who claims to
have noticed a Muslim woman quietly take off her head covering on a train. ‘I ran after her
at the train station. I said “put it back on. I’ll walk with u.”,’ she wrote to her social network.
4. Chelsea Manning, imprisoned whistle-blower, receives thousands of birthday messages
to her twitter account (@xychelsea) on her sixth year of incarceration into a 35-year
sentence. The previous year, The Guardian published birthday cards from international
artists, activists and public figures. Poet Saul Williams wrote, ‘we applaud you, we buy you
dresses and handbags (what size are you now?), pop bottles in your honour, and salute
your wayward flag.’ Chelsea Manning, though incarcerated, has not been silenced.
5. Someone found love, through Tinder, through Grindr, through variations of these.
Someone found community, support and solidarity, on Tumblr, on Blogspot, on
LiveJournal, on variations of these.
6. I Skyped with my grandmother living in Bosnia.
Despair is defeat. Hope is power.
@sanjagrozdanic
krass.com.au
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