Digital Dissenter

This is a short video piece that I produced as part of a multimedia exhibition for the Rhodes Organisation for Animal Rights second annual Animal Rights Awareness Week at Rhodes. The video was posted on myvideo.co.za and on Facebook and so far the response has been phenomenal. A Cape Town based animal rights organisation, Beauty Without Cruelty has also asked to use the video in their vegetarian campaigns. I was even stopped on the street by someone who I haven't seen since high school, who had come across the video online and she said that she found it to be incredibly powerful and it even made her decide to start cutting down on her meat consumption. Go Team Animals!

The music is a track called "Everloving" by Moby, and it was taken from the "Earthlings" soundtrack (Earthlings is a full-length feature documentary on the exploitation of animals which is freely available online). The words were taken from a poem written by Anonymous.

Online activism is often charged with making things too easy for people. Most commentators seem to want to cling to a notion of traditional activism as something that requires people to get their hands dirty, to put in the hours screaming the odds outside the headquarters of multinationals and to actually put a bit of sweat blood and tears into a cause. Being able to contribute to a cause by just a few clicks of a mouse just doesn’t seem to qualify as what many of would still like to believe activism should be.

But so what? Is it really that detrimental to activism as a whole to have some people support a cause without ever leaving their homes or their office?

Human beings are a very fickle bunch. And we are becoming increasingly so with the advent of social networking and social media and the growing need to construct and maintain our online personas. It is our preoccupation with image and social profiles that acts as quite a considerable barrier when it comes to getting people to do something.

Just like no one wants to be the first to arrive at a party, no one wants to be the first, or only person to show up at a protest. This is where the notion of mob-mentality comes into successful digital activism.

People expect a lot from activists. Their campaigns are said to be either too commercial or not commercial enough. They're either too broad or too narrow. Too edgy, too offensive. Demanding too much or demanding too little. It's difficult to find a formula that works.

Greenpeace is particularly creative in their approach. They are also very strategic. They are in fact one of the few organisations able to successfully combine on-the-ground activism with the supportive potential of online platforms. The Kit-Kat campaign was run earlier this year and resulted in victory for Greenpeace in less than a month.

In wanting to write a post about censorship online I have been reading up on a number of issues ranging from the Great Firewall of China, the proposed firewall in Australia to the legislation concerning the ban of so-called “crush-videos” in the US. The latter in particular got me thinking about the catch-22 involved in certain types of activism that require the distribution of content that contains explicit violence – especially towards animals. (Forgive me if just this once I actually use this blog entry which is meant for the discussion of digital activism for some of my own activism.)

If, like myself, you didn’t know what “crush-videos” are; thanks to the Web I now know that they refer to videos of women crushing small animals with their bare feet or stiletto heels. Apparently there is a (sick and perverted) market for such content. A ban was passed on the creation, possession and distribution of such videos in the US in 1998.

At the end of May I attended an Animal Rights Symposium that brought together some of the most influential people from the South African animal rights movement. The talks were enlightening and the discussions were thought-provoking, but when it came to deciding on a way forward for our cause, we all seemed to hit a brick wall.

Some activists took the stance that we needed to advocate veganism as a healthy and ethical lifestyle choice, and many of the people who backed this idea were adamant that anything short of veganism was a cop-out. The suggestion that has stuck with me though was one that advocated a much more incremental approach to the cause and the realisation of its ultimate goals.

For anyone who knows me, you were probably surprised that I didn’t find some way of turning last week’s post about the Julius Malema issue into an animal rights issue. Fear not! This week I’m back on my favourite topic: animal rights activism.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) get a lot of flack. Rarely can I hand out one of their cute “I’m not a nugget!” stickers without being asked if I subscribe to the organisation’s extremist tactics. Well to be honest, I do and I don’t.

PETA is extremely inventive in the way in which they approach their different campaigns. They are often in the news for either bearing all on sidewalks or for throwing red paint on fashionistas who dare to wear fur. Their online campaigns are equally controversial and often feature scantily clad celebrities posing in cabbage leaves or holding a strategically placed bunny.

The last couple of weeks have provided some particularly good political entertainment with Andre Visagie of the AWB and Julius Malema on top form.

“Don’t touch me on my studio” has become a new catch phrase, with various remixes of the original encounter in the eTV studio appearing on various platforms. Malema’s outburst at an ANCYL conference at a BBC journalist has also inadvertently given the online community some excellent content for repurposing. I often find myself watching these types of clips (and having a good laugh) but rarely do I find something so catchy that it finds its way into my current playlist – and stays there for over a week.

It has been said that any sufficiently advanced read/write platform will inevitably be used for two purposes: pornography and activism. While porn provides the basic mic test (‘tap tap… is this thing on?’), activism is said to provide the stronger test of the platform’s efficacy. As such, if activists are using the platform and/or tools, it can be considered a good indication of their usability and usefulness.