SOPA/ PIPA Boycott Campaign

Its Hollywood VS Silicon Valley

SOPA: Stop Online Piracy Act
PIPA: PROTECT IP Act

Jan. 18, 2012 is the designated SOPA blackout day.  In protest prominent websites: Wikipedia, Go Daddy, Reddit and over 10,000 other sites are planning to go dark to contest two bills working through Congress. The bills will go before the US Congress on Jan 24th, where they will vote to pass internet censorship in the Senate, even though the vast majority of Americans are opposed. The bills are supported by Hollywood and the entertainment industry - Silicon Valley, representative of many who want to kill the bill in the House, say they want to protect rights to free speech, privacy, and prosperity.

The campaign to boycott is mostly crowdsourced in that individuals, groups, organizations and internet business have created their own content to express themselves.  Twitter especially has seen large numbers of avatars covered with a black box censored. Youtube, at the time of writing had over 30,000 video results to the SOPA search.  Wikipedia is shut down - only with a message requesting Zip codes which directs viewers to contact their local government officials

WANT to PROTEST? If you would like to participate with changing your avatar or shutting down your website for a day here’s a great link http://sopastrike.com/

From Wikipedia:

We’re a culture, not a costume

When I was a kid, ethnic stereotypes often made their way into Halloween costumes. It was a more innocently ignorant time, when dressing as a “Mexican Bandito”, and “Indian” or a “cannibal” was seen as OK.

Here, for example, is a scene from a costume party in the 1983 comedy Trading Places.

It is no longer okay. Especially not in the present era, where multicultural communities and digital media put us in contact with each other every day. It was bad enough when a bunch of white kids reinforced each other’s ideas about cartoon stereotypes of other cultures. It is even worse when those cultures have to see themselves lampooned.

That’s why I think this campaign by Ohio University’s Students Teaching Against Racism (STARS) is a needed one. Particularly considering the current climate of racism in the United States (as elsewhere in the developed world) against immigrants in general, domestic ethnic minorities, indigenous people and most recently against followers of Islam.

While a campaign like this will not stop racism, it can at least encourage people who are shy to speak out against hurtful stereotypes they see at parties to do something about it. And maybe then these caricatures, which continue to reinforce xenophobic myths and distrust about what “those people” are like, can start to be denormalized.

From the Eternal Sunshine blog, “These posters act as a public service announcement for colored communities. It’s about respect, human dignity, and the acceptance of other cultures (these posters simply ask people to think before they choose their Halloween costume). Although some Halloween costumes aren’t as racist as the blackface minstrel shows back in the day, they harken to similar prejudices. What these costumes have in common is that they make caricatures out of cultures, and that is simply not okay.”

After the break: “Ghetto” African-American, Indian Chief, Geisha and Bandito.

WHEN HANDICAPS BRING THE NORM INTO QUESTION!

Here is a very unique project. Watever emotions it’ll generate, it can’t leave you cold.
This project is an amazing documentary ( I can’t say about handicap question because it would be too much simplistic) named « Mirror of my soul ».

All you have to do is browse through the literature pertaining to handicaps (the various attempts to define the term, the numerous denominations, and even the recent laws regarding the topic) to understand that handicaps are still a major social issue. Despite heightened awareness and legal measures, handicaps continue to be a cause of social exclusion; and this with regards to education, access to facilities, professional integration, but first and foremost to social acceptance.

A central theme in Mirror of my soul, a tenderly and modestly filmed documentary, is making people aware that the way some look at those who are handicapped is sometimes harder to take than the handicap itself.
It is thus essential to instruct people on how to see handicaps. This documentary goes in search of some souls.

Don’t behave like an animal on public transit

It’s true: poetry doesn’t translate. Especially awkward PSA poetry.

This courtesy campaign reminds transit riders in Paris to act like human beings. Cute idea, if a little furry. But a comparison of the international version above (these are usually produced for adblogs and awards shows) with the original French (found here) shows the loss in translation:

The original version is from the client site. (Isn’t it funny how the annoying superimposed mouse type disappeared from the “non-client” versions?) See all of the ads (in both English and French) after the break.

You’ve Seen More Gay Movies Than You Think

Have you ever wondered why there are closets in a movie?
Corny humor in these four videos from Queer Lisboa, the Lisbon gay and lesbian film festival. Too corny I think.

Last year they did a remake of a scene from Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. This year they took four others, all about the theme ‘coming out of the closet’.
The festival took place from the 16th to the 24th September 2011.

Queer Lisboa is the sole Portuguese Film Festival dedicated exclusively to screening gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and transsexual themed films, a genre known as Queer Cinema.

Say Something Nice

This is the latest mission from Improv Everywhere held in New York. I love it. A big mouth full of unsavory words seem quite normal today. This action from Improv could be a reaction on that. Well that is my interpretation.
Improv Everywhere placed a wooden lectern with a megaphone holster and an attached sign: Say Something Nice. The lectern was placed outdoor on various places in New York and then left alone. They wanted to see what would happen if New Yorkers were given the opportunity say something nice.

Say Something Nice is part of the Guggenheim Museum exhibition stillspotting nyc. This is the second collaboration in the series, the first being The Mute Button.

Improv Everywhere describes themselves as a New York City-based prank collective that causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places.

Cage Against The Machine: 4’33”

Do you also find the Christmas charts very annoying? In England they do. Last year they had a great action to break through the dominance of the X-factor mess. It was a victory, Rage Against the Machine became No. 1.
This year it can be even more obscure.
Cage Against The Machine started as a joke. And now the joke is so close to becoming a reality.

Cage Against The Machine is a campaign to get John Cage’s “silent” masterpiece, 4’33” [Wikipedia], to Christmas No 1 for 2010. At the time of writing, over 86,000 people have joined the Facebook Group. The ultimate goal: make it a silent night on Radio 1.
In case you don’t know, 4’33” is a piece of music containing 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence.
Participating is easy. Buy the mp3 in the iTunes store or other online stores. It is a non commercial project. Funds go to five different charities.

The video above is the making of.

India Dreams Big

India’s DREAM:IN project by Idiom in conjunction with Parsons,The New School has been devised to challenge us to create not for people’s needs – but for their dreams. The initiative sets out to scratch below the surface of traditional information capture through a network of student and professionals (dream-catchers) across 6 cities, 18 towns and 36 villages. The findings will be shared with corporates, policy makers, entrepreneurs, social reformers and academics and is planned as an annual process of collaboration. It aims to become a space for sharing visions and scenarios based on these dreams.

Because dreams give us a large canvas to create.

Pigeon Droppings Guerilla

PopUp is an urban culture festival taking place in Lisbon from November 4 to December 11. This year, it has “Urban Nomads” for a theme and pigeons as their icon.

Guerilla agency Torke was invited to take part on the exhibit as an artist and also asked to develop a low cost and high impact stunt to advertise the festival.
They chose to take the thing birds do that is the most spread around the city: their shit. Thousands of pigeon shit stickers were put on cars, ATMs, stores and even people near the places where Pop Up will happen.
Nothing escaped from this artillery from nature, and according to Torke is was more efficient then the pigeons themselves.

The Netherlands is screaming for culture

The Netherlands have a new government. Liberal conservatist and christian democrats rule the flat lands now. Like most countries the Netherlands must reduce their spendings. And what was expected with the new government the culture industry must economize disproportional.
That makes the Dutch angry. The Netherlands is screaming for culture.

The action is supported by many Dutch arty celebs. The campaign is named Nederland schreeuwt om cultuur / The Netherlands is screaming for culture.
Above the long version of the video. Irritating? Check the short version after the break.