A bunch of bigoted one percenters hired some unemployed 20-somethings to glitterbomb Rick Santorum. And they threw the glitter at him, and no one much cared.
Stupid-ass embedding disabled by request.
http://youtu.be/D4eTuOJhWS8
After landing most of the glitter harmlessly on the ground near Santorum, the protesters revealed their motivation for such enormous symbolic act: they yelled "You hate gays!" at Rick Santorum, one of the less fruitful protest tactics I've seen. The only way it makes sense is if Santorum rushes to defend himself, which is 1)unlikely, since your critique does not come from a position of influence or thoughtfulness and, 2)not even damning were he to decide to. It's like they wanted to provide Santorum the opportunity to reiterate his position on family values.
If that weren't enough to raise suspicion of whether this is actually satire, as they are escorted away the protesters inexplicably begin shouting "occupy!" This fourth-wall breaking is only useful when making a comment on the art, otherwise it's just a disruption. No real occupy protester would be so dumb as to associate their cause with half-assed glitterbombing. Occupy stands for much larger, egalitarian issues and seeks to achieve a real change in democracy. Nice try bigoted one percenters, but no one with half a brain believes that was a real protest.
On the other hand, it is possible some real protesters just punked themselves by valuing zeal more than intelligence, and enthusiasm more than planning. Demonstrating solidarity as you voluntarily leave could be a means to save face at what would embarrass 99% of people. Is it satire?
Showing posts with label ows. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ows. Show all posts
Monday, March 5, 2012
Saturday, December 10, 2011
A call to the shamans, the elders.
Today I wanted to finally pay homage to the primogen of Satire?blog, the straw(man) that broke the camel's back and propelled me to ask "is it satire?" in the shirt-ripping manner that I now do. Please give a warm look of quoi while I bring to you the very definition of the ineffable, TransguyJacePDX.
You might expect me question the utility of spiritual shamans and elder healers in a 21st century policy struggle or to start in on sentences like, "there were the use of sound weaponry," or "...synchronicity...one after another." You know, really shit on him from atop my throne of words. But I'm not. I love this video. It is perfect.
Every thing I've covered on satire?blog so far has obvious extra-textual clues that indicate its intent. For instance, a single shitty hip hop song may be an obvious caricature of art and music, but in the context of a well-established industry which excretes the same waste week after week it is obviously not meant as satire, which makes my tone of ineffability a facade. We could just say these things suck, but pretending they might be intentional makes a greater rhetorical impact and serves as a writing exercise. A healthy exercise, I think, but deliberate and a little unfulfilling.
Jace Transguy doesn't have extra-textual clues. He only has 200+ views on the video and I suspect my post on facebook is at least 100 of those. No one has written about him. No one buys what he makes. He obviously has an agenda, but only in the most recondite sense does his audience have any influence on it. It's almost as if he doesn't exist at all. As his transient delivery calls out to the shamans, this ghostly obsession with spirituality suggests a wish to reach out from the great beyond for a child-vessel in which to be born again; satanically, not satirically.
This lack of corporeality makes it difficult to see Trans Jaceguy as an object of satire as well. At 200+ views, the lack of internet presence makes a strong case that he is not a memelogical agent designed to spread virally and undermine the Occupy Wallstreet movement. On the other hand, what would a satire of a white-collar, ostentatious, liberal look like? If you saw the protesters as entitled, wet-behind-the-ears whippersnappers who've never gotten their hands dirty a day in their lives, isn't this the speech you would write? Obliviousness to consequences, "there were many cities who...for the first time...really encountered force from police, that they had never seen before," grandiose arcs of victimization, "people in wheelchairs were tear gassed," abstract gobbledygook, "reactionary responses...occupied spaces," and problematic grammar throughout, delivered by someone with "trans" in his username who is less than clean-cut. Perhaps you might use someone more self-righteous, or perhaps you were going for dim-witted stammering, but this is 95% of the idea. He may not have sang Kumbaya (the viewer assumes a bum pawned his acoustic guitar for hootch), but his heart was definitely bleeding from those rubber bullets. All told, this is a particularly mean-spirited caricature by whoever made it.
At once, Guy Jacetrans's video is both a heartfelt call to shaman/elders, and a clear indictment of university education in the hands of youth. It is completely ambiguous. A strong case can be made for either interpretation, and best of all, there is no key at the end of the text to check our answers. That's what sets this video apart from all the others and makes it truly thrilling. Is it satire? I don't even...!
You might expect me question the utility of spiritual shamans and elder healers in a 21st century policy struggle or to start in on sentences like, "there were the use of sound weaponry," or "...synchronicity...one after another." You know, really shit on him from atop my throne of words. But I'm not. I love this video. It is perfect.
Every thing I've covered on satire?blog so far has obvious extra-textual clues that indicate its intent. For instance, a single shitty hip hop song may be an obvious caricature of art and music, but in the context of a well-established industry which excretes the same waste week after week it is obviously not meant as satire, which makes my tone of ineffability a facade. We could just say these things suck, but pretending they might be intentional makes a greater rhetorical impact and serves as a writing exercise. A healthy exercise, I think, but deliberate and a little unfulfilling.
Jace Transguy doesn't have extra-textual clues. He only has 200+ views on the video and I suspect my post on facebook is at least 100 of those. No one has written about him. No one buys what he makes. He obviously has an agenda, but only in the most recondite sense does his audience have any influence on it. It's almost as if he doesn't exist at all. As his transient delivery calls out to the shamans, this ghostly obsession with spirituality suggests a wish to reach out from the great beyond for a child-vessel in which to be born again; satanically, not satirically.
This lack of corporeality makes it difficult to see Trans Jaceguy as an object of satire as well. At 200+ views, the lack of internet presence makes a strong case that he is not a memelogical agent designed to spread virally and undermine the Occupy Wallstreet movement. On the other hand, what would a satire of a white-collar, ostentatious, liberal look like? If you saw the protesters as entitled, wet-behind-the-ears whippersnappers who've never gotten their hands dirty a day in their lives, isn't this the speech you would write? Obliviousness to consequences, "there were many cities who...for the first time...really encountered force from police, that they had never seen before," grandiose arcs of victimization, "people in wheelchairs were tear gassed," abstract gobbledygook, "reactionary responses...occupied spaces," and problematic grammar throughout, delivered by someone with "trans" in his username who is less than clean-cut. Perhaps you might use someone more self-righteous, or perhaps you were going for dim-witted stammering, but this is 95% of the idea. He may not have sang Kumbaya (the viewer assumes a bum pawned his acoustic guitar for hootch), but his heart was definitely bleeding from those rubber bullets. All told, this is a particularly mean-spirited caricature by whoever made it.
At once, Guy Jacetrans's video is both a heartfelt call to shaman/elders, and a clear indictment of university education in the hands of youth. It is completely ambiguous. A strong case can be made for either interpretation, and best of all, there is no key at the end of the text to check our answers. That's what sets this video apart from all the others and makes it truly thrilling. Is it satire? I don't even...!
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Redress = get dressed again what?!
One ongoing theme at Satire?blog is the difficulty distinguishing between stupidity and mockery. If someone fails sufficiently enough it can be impossible to tell if that person did so deliberately to make you laugh or make a point. Depending on the (1)source and your own (2)personal level of skepticism, you will make an informed guess as to the person's (3)intentions, and thusly decide (4)is it satire?
If I were to look at the democratic body of the US, I would see an astounding demonstration of confidence in lieu of actual expertise. Occupy Wall Street protesters provide a particularly wounding example: "It's unfair how investment banks can print money and use it for what they want." But a failure to understand how the government manages the national economy is not unique to park dwellers. These groups, literally demonstrating they can articulate neither the problem nor the solution, provide fertile grounds for asking are you fucking kidding me?
If I were responsible for solving the nation's problems and this was the feedback I got I might be inclined to react negatively. So it is understandable that on September 22nd the White House rolled out this petition mechanism on whitehouse.gov, no doubt as a means to more effectively discard with the risible sentiments of the hoi polloi. It allows you to petition the government for redress of grievances, which sounds a little-old fashioned.
It's also weird to think about. How is the government, the perpetual faceless bureaucracy, supposed to respond to millions of citizens? It's not God. Smaller, more local components of government lack the authority needed to address many grievances, and the institutions at the top certainly don't have time to address any which are not backed by a PAC. The idea of individuals talking to government is sweet, but indistinguishable from prayer.
Of course, that vague, dreamlike feeling you get from reading "petition the government for redress" is the fading memory of the first amendment. Oh high school civics! The way you made the structure and purpose of government so sensible. Much is lost by the time people become actual voters and start agitating for the 1% to pay their school loans or for the 47% to sink into the income gap with their bootstraps pulled up to their grimace.
Petitioning the government via the internet seems like a real solution which does not involve shitting in a park or posting photos of handwriting on the internet. Finally. But it's so plainly not a solution due to the much larger influence of campaign contributions, lobbying efforts, and grassroots movements funded by billionaires (the influence of physical protests belongs here in this parenthetical afterthought), that we have wonder if it is satire. Make a petition. Email your friends. Then go play in the kiddie pool.
A satire test I like to use for political issues is to ask if it could be featured as a joke on the Onion News Network. A system where5,000 25,000 people need to electronically sign a petition to get a government essay in response? What good is a response? Is the response essay, written by the intern who "consulted relevant experts" going to a vote in the Congress? And if it did, would it get to go ahead of political bullshit that our legislators are currently involved with?
Many people are frustrated by what they view as a lack of responsive government and paradoxically, its intrinsic devotion to public relations. To those people this petition mechanism is a joke. So they use the joke to make a joke: We demand a vapid, condescending, meaningless, politically safe response to this petition. Hey yo dawg I heard you like satire so we put some satire in your satire so you can shake a fist and laugh while you humorously criticize a system of fist shaking.
The public's relationship to governance is as fascinating as it is depressing. The public mistrusts the government because the public does not believe it governs in their interests, but the public at all times will criticize the government for being influenced by the public. Through these simple rules we get a rich myriad of interactions which fill our TV boxes and news sheets daily; OWS & Tea etc. It's like a goddamn Mandelbrot sequence:
If I were to look at the democratic body of the US, I would see an astounding demonstration of confidence in lieu of actual expertise. Occupy Wall Street protesters provide a particularly wounding example: "It's unfair how investment banks can print money and use it for what they want." But a failure to understand how the government manages the national economy is not unique to park dwellers. These groups, literally demonstrating they can articulate neither the problem nor the solution, provide fertile grounds for asking are you fucking kidding me?
If I were responsible for solving the nation's problems and this was the feedback I got I might be inclined to react negatively. So it is understandable that on September 22nd the White House rolled out this petition mechanism on whitehouse.gov, no doubt as a means to more effectively discard with the risible sentiments of the hoi polloi. It allows you to petition the government for redress of grievances, which sounds a little-old fashioned.
It's also weird to think about. How is the government, the perpetual faceless bureaucracy, supposed to respond to millions of citizens? It's not God. Smaller, more local components of government lack the authority needed to address many grievances, and the institutions at the top certainly don't have time to address any which are not backed by a PAC. The idea of individuals talking to government is sweet, but indistinguishable from prayer.
Of course, that vague, dreamlike feeling you get from reading "petition the government for redress" is the fading memory of the first amendment. Oh high school civics! The way you made the structure and purpose of government so sensible. Much is lost by the time people become actual voters and start agitating for the 1% to pay their school loans or for the 47% to sink into the income gap with their bootstraps pulled up to their grimace.
Petitioning the government via the internet seems like a real solution which does not involve shitting in a park or posting photos of handwriting on the internet. Finally. But it's so plainly not a solution due to the much larger influence of campaign contributions, lobbying efforts, and grassroots movements funded by billionaires (the influence of physical protests belongs here in this parenthetical afterthought), that we have wonder if it is satire. Make a petition. Email your friends. Then go play in the kiddie pool.
A satire test I like to use for political issues is to ask if it could be featured as a joke on the Onion News Network. A system where
Many people are frustrated by what they view as a lack of responsive government and paradoxically, its intrinsic devotion to public relations. To those people this petition mechanism is a joke. So they use the joke to make a joke: We demand a vapid, condescending, meaningless, politically safe response to this petition. Hey yo dawg I heard you like satire so we put some satire in your satire so you can shake a fist and laugh while you humorously criticize a system of fist shaking.
The public's relationship to governance is as fascinating as it is depressing. The public mistrusts the government because the public does not believe it governs in their interests, but the public at all times will criticize the government for being influenced by the public. Through these simple rules we get a rich myriad of interactions which fill our TV boxes and news sheets daily; OWS & Tea etc. It's like a goddamn Mandelbrot sequence:
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
You call that hard work? This is hard work.
The Tea party's response to the Occupy Wall Street protests has been a series of people like this. They call themselves the 53% and confuse even our benevolent overlords, the 1%:
I have spent far more hours than I should have these last few weeks puzzling over the postings on that website, trying to understand who these people are and why they would possibly care about my taxes.
This has been a curiosity for me as well. Why the hell do some people engage in this sort of "look at my handwriting!" brand of identity politics, particularly the ones whose would say "the system served me well enough." That seems like a bystander attitude which instead is modulated into shut up superiority. Stienbeck's quote hits on it, but it doesn't quite solve the mystery of the 53%. "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." Belief in the American Dream accounts for some of this, but clearly there is a substantial external force operating. Is it the desire to to outdo the Chinese? Grassroots efforts funded by the Koch brothers?
At this point it is evident Australians are flooding the country at record numbers. Anyone posting something along the lines of "I work very hard so you should shut up and work harder," is actually a tax paying Australian. They have a level of pride in their grit that generally surpasses its utility. It's not well-meaning American dreaming, it's poisonous insects everywhere (PIE) mentality. What gave them away? They lack the commitment to democratic pluralism that would allow them to pass as regular ol' Americans. I'm on to you guys.
I can't say I dislike anyone who is willing to work harder for less. It makes the job easier for anyone with authority over them. It's also crucially important to have fighters in a country with a voluntary armed service; were they not so willing to suffer, they would drive up recruitment costs and we'd all pay more. Positively altruistic, those PIE eating Australians.
For the rest of the ...quoi?/self-parody punchlines of the 53% response read the rest of the article I quoted at the top.
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