Terrorist Advertising

Posted by tomo at 01:56 AM in apple , urban . | 3 Comments

The Neistat Brothers' "dirtylittlesecret" video makes me wonder: Are they no better than terrorists or are they simply exercising their freedom of speech in a public forum?

We are surrounded by exposed surfaces which steal our focus by otherwise blocking our view as we walk around. These surfaces are controlled by a minority who can and would knowingly harm us. They don't have the best interests of the public in mind, though we have no choice in being visually spammed. Apple would want to hide from the public the fact that their product has an amazing failure rate, thus the Neistat brothers are doing us a favor by spreading that information. There are times that the group's needs must come before the individual's. I think this can be justification enough for certain kinds of graffiti.

Billboards and other public outdoors advertisement create new canvases and then monopolize them. They exist as a means for those with money and sometimes it comes at an expense to the public. At times the ads are so offensive that individuals acting are willing to "democratize" them, forcefully opening up these giant rectangles to anyone who can come up with writing utensils. These people who modify private property may be representing a voiceless people.

So, who are these people, whether freedom fighters or terrorists? One of the oldest are the Billboard Liberation Front...

BLF have been in business since 1977 when they started modifying cigarette billboards in the Bay Area. Tobacco companies are in the business of making money knowingly at the expense of society. They make people sick yet burden the public as a whole in caring for them. This business is legal and so are their ads. There may be something wrong when it's okay for a minority to use a common resource to further poison those common people who are then unable to defend themselves by subverting the message. BLF decided to take matters into their own hands by changing a billboard from "I'm realistic - I only smoke Fact" to "I'm real sick - I only smoke - Facts." Perhaps it was just a self-defense mechanism of society? When car company Chrysler tried a "punk rock" campaign of spraypaint modifying their own billboards (Napster wasn't the first to use faux graffiti) in their Neon ads, BLF stepped in to complete the "punk rock" look.

[Lots more billboard graffiti at cleansurface.org's gallery and a few at Busted Amsterdam Billboards B A B]

Of course, it's not necessary to use billboards. There are plenty of places that haven't been turned into ad space (yet). And there are ways to turn these spaces into forums without being destructive, without damaging anything, without being permanent. That is freewayblogger's method. "When you put a sign on the freeway people will read it until someone takes it down."

So what about the destructive, damaging, permanent methods...