Party Vibe

no? just me then 😉

i can’t say i blame politicians for living in a soundbite world. If anyone starts to talk about things in a sensible manner, the media twist out-of-context quotes and make them look a) reactionary or b) radically communist or c) something else bad. this doesn’t just apply to politicians as we all know how the free party scene has been portrayed in the past.

having said that, blunkett couldn’t be more terrifying soundbite or no…. http://www.sundayherald.com/40592 as pointed out by Nomad

I think the time is long overdue to start reclaiming the media for the people. This can take loads of forms, from altering billboards to give a truer message of what certain companies are about, to pirate broadcasts, organisaing buy nothing days… http://www.buynothingday.co.uk and http://adbusters.org/home/ have a few ideas, some of which are a bit convoluted, but better than murdoch nevertheless

last year i organsied buy nothing day here in exeter. In the end a lot of the planned activities didn’t take place due to pissing rain, but… lots of people were interested and local radio interviewed me on the day.

They seemed to like the idea of promoting a christmas message that included things like spending time with a friend or relative you don’t often see, cutting up your credit cards, volunteering, repairing something etc etc despite being a commercial station.

I hope this year the weather will be better and we can create a money-free lounging area in the city centre with free fair trade tea and coffee and some music (buskers or whatever).

Apart from that sort of thing I’ve been involved in various campaigning groups (social stuff mainly, human rights etc) and started to get quite sucked in by some anarchist groups in France when I lived there, but in the end I thought that they were just as bad procrastinators as any politician.

These days I work in the voluntary sector on projects that help people become a little more empowered and active. It’s not going to change the world over night, but it does change some things and I think all we can ever do is throw our pebbles into the ocean, so to speak.

With regard to the media… it’s a tough one to crack, but I think we need to be chipping away at it in some way or other. The fact that a commercial radio station was prepared to promote not buying anything was encouraging. I hope the reporter has a successful career and keeps supporting this kind of thing.

I’ve heard about a canadian group that have produced an ‘advert’ for TV that depicts a non-branded trainer for about 60 seconds, followed by a non-logo. They pay for it to go out on national TV with donations. It might sound pointless, but if you can plant that seed in someone’s mind that they are being manipulated by the media, perhaps it will have an effect.

rather long and rambley. mushrooms last night still making me burble. what i’m trying to say is down with murdoch and his ilk, up the revolution. quite how to achieve a media revolution is still a puzzle.

ideas?

I guess rejecting mindless consumerism is fairly a-political.

The really encouraging thing was people from all walks of life were supportive. It’s bloody rare that someone is doing something interesting and funny for free in the city centre during the Xmas mayhem period.

From little old blue rinsed ladies (who thought that the ‘true’ meaning of Xmas had been lost), young families with kids in tow (who loved the idea of their kids drawing what they wanted to do for xmas instead of what they wanted to have), old hippies (who thought it was amazing, man) lots of people were interested.

it’s hard to work out how to harness that interest, however.

I guess at the moment just raising awareness of media/corporate manipulation is the main objective.