Paul Carr is the process of elimination, writer. He writes a weekly column for TechCrunch, weak focusing on media and technology. For the first part he might run away calls his career, he edited various publications and founded multiple businesses with varying degrees of abysmal failure. After getting fired from every job he ever had – including at least ... ? Read More
"You can get a mask and join the fight, too! But I heard jewellery shop sold out until Friday. "– ' Anonymous ' (NY Times)
As proponents of "Anonymous" again to take to the streets — and platform — around San Francisco Bart rail system, frustrated commuters can find some fun reading pages of today's New York Times.
Reiterating what most of us with half a brain already know the month, Nick Bilton reported that every time someone from anonymous user buys one of those smug, Guy Fawkes masks, they line the pockets of time Warner ...
"Stark white with pink cheeks blushed, wide green and thin black mustache and goatee, masks resonates with hackers because he wore a rogue anarchists, call authoritarian governments in" V for Vendetta ", a movie by Warner Brothers in 2006 year. What few people know, though, is that Time Warner, one of the largest media companies in the world and the parent of Warner Brothers, owns the rights to the image and paid licensing fee from the sale of the mask. "
Well, duh.
Much has been written about the curious double standard anonymous: behind the mask while performing coarse privacy anyone they consider to be their enemy; objections, when journalists talk about their leadership ("who can be Anonymous"), but cried foul when someone threatens physical harm in their name ("they're not with us!"); bitching about The Man, restricting their freedoms, while simultaneously breaking thousands of ordinary residents of San Francisco.
Properly what has not yet been discussed, however, is both creatively bankrupt the entire endeavor.
Given that the band began life on dwelling monsters, ground zero memes, this should be no surprise that all the anonymous deeply derivatives. Indeed, this was all the points. In a group use the Guy Fawkes mask goes back to, of course, V for Vendetta; Warner Brothers movie, which was adapted from Alan Moore's comic book series. But movies and comic books old media. As Bilton, he picked up dumb viral video "Epic fail guy" is seen peering in the basket and new, to wear masks, "V" is for members-dwelling monsters remember film and come up with the idea of a Moore pictures from their own.
The protagonist in v for Vendetta, you remember, called upon throughout the UK, dress up in these precise masks in order to create a huge army of anonymous overthrow of repressive Government. (He also attacked and imprisoned terrified, Natalie Portman, but whatever). Being mostly from the generation accustomed to copying and pasting other people's ideas as their own, anonymous members feel free to take a mask for their real-world pranks, using his first protest against Church of Scientology and now in protest just about anything else. (By Moore, he said that he was glad that the anonymous user uses his character to their protests and so it must be: if any writer is the appropriation and re-use existing signs for fun and profit, Alan Moore)
Of course mass protests have always relied on common slogans and motives. Many people have a deep concern about the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but it took the phrase "Ban the bomb" and the ubiquitous CND symbol to merge them into a notable movement. Sound a thousand chanting: "we will not be moved" will always be more powerful than the shame people simply singing or chanting that comes to mind. For all these reasons, the Guy Fawkes mask is prima facie (sorry) symbol of the ideal mechanism. But while the "Ban the bomb" was coined by protesters of their deeds, the key difference with Anonymous that almost none of their defining images, slogans and methods were actually created, invented or conceived by members of the anonymous user.
V for Vendetta was not actual protest but the protest submitted by bestselling stylization of comic book and blockbuster movie. Similarly, taking the V mask anonymous risks of less as a truly grass-roots movement than a parody of one carbon copy what some children seen in the film and decided to mimic because it looked cool. Meme.
It doesn't help that in almost all cases, the attacks in response to the group name is a DDOS attack, using well-known holes in SQL — most bog standard point-and-click variety. Lack of creativity and original ideology percolates throughout the organization. When anonymous protesters claim they do something "for the lulz", or just Parrot any fragment of an idea they had heard the same day ("well, it's because of the Iraq war and racism in Arizona and. .. what bad thing Sony did ... "), they create visibility don't really know why they were protesting at all. It is just that — well, everything else to wear masks, um, I've seen it online and it looked cool-and hey, fuck you! We are legion! Expect of us!
Given the staggering lack of original thought, authorize the enter Anonymous, it is fitting that many of those who today protested in San Francisco would prefer to pay people to use its product – equivalent protested McDonalds, throw a cup of Starbucks coffee, instead of spending 10 minutes to come up with their own characters.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on the species — same laziness will likely raise short term storage for anonymous popularity. Memes get old quickly; in taking original ideas to achieve real longevity. Time Warner must benefit from the windfall, while they can.
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