Having long found flashmobs to be one of the dorkier result of combining social media and performance art intervention, I was thrilled to see that the game is stepping up. In this ultimately cheezy flashmob, a group of people call attention to our plastic problem and to random-act recycling. And it rules.
I find this intervention interesting on two levels- first because it's appropriating for the cause of environmental justice the strange and popular contemporary practice of gathering en mass in a public place to surprise people with some kind of performance... are we seeing the flashmob as a new form of protest?
And second because of the simplicity and profundity of their "performance". I mean, it's a room full of people clapping because an individual finally picked up the pop bottle and recycled it... calling attention to how many people did not. The extreme validation applied here gets me thinking about how the necessity of recycling is common knowledge, yet is somehow not enough to actually motivate our society to produce less waste and recycle more. The abstractness of the gesture of putting something in the garbage/recycling in relation to what happens after the garbage/recycling is picked up doesn't help, and I'm left thinking, is this where we're at? That extreme forms of validation are necessary to get people recycling, because apparently caring about the environment isn't enough to actually motivate people to produce less waste and to recycle?
...If only we had to be responsible for our own waste. I'd certainly stop getting my coffee to go.
Recycling Bottle Flash Mob
Popular Posts
-
Ads for outdoor sporting goods often come with associations. Advertisers for “The North Face”, a pricy, high performance athletic gear man... -
I have recently been thinking a lot about what I would like to focus my research on for the Mass Media paper and have been especially inter...
-
I’ve created twospoofs on the Absolute Vodka Ads. I have seen a few of these done on Ad busters before and I always find it entertaining t... -
Axe is a brand of male grooming products whose lead product is a fragranced aerosol deodorant body spray. Their adve... -
As You can tell, facebook represents drugs in this ad. Obviously, facebook is an international phenomenon which can be said to be addictiv... -
My spoof ad (below) speaks to the destructive nature of popular culture and media, particularly in terms of trends and advertisements aimed ... -
Here's the counter ad that I created for a Cover Girl advertisement that was focusing on eye make-up. The original ad shows a picture of Rh... -
For my counter-ad, I made a very minor change to the original as can be seen. Though there was only minor changes seen, the process actuall... -
Victoria Secret are in trouble this week as reports of their Super Ultra Sexy Breasts-That-Act-as-A-Shelf Bras have been burning and scarrin...
-
iPod Isolation: A situation where people are in the same vicinity as others, yet are disconnected from human interaction because of their iP...
1 comments:
Oh I love this! I fully agree with your points about flash mobs being used as a new form of protest. I've actually seen one where it was used as a way of showing how easy it is to create a healthy meal.
The issue of recycling being a random/irregular act in our society leaves me with the same questions as you've mentioned. In my practicum this year, I taught a unit on eco-footprint and we covered waste, looking at the Great Pacific Garbage patch and dissecting our own garbage to see how much of it is actually recyclable. I was shocked to see a whole bunch of paper and juice boxes in the garbage can the next day. I wonder what it will take to motivate everyone to recycle, let alone reuse and reduce.
Post a Comment