Make it meta – Page 2 – followthethings.com

“The First Ever Pacemaker To Speak For Itself“
Undergraduate coursework made and recorded by Jennifer Hart
Images of the pacemaker and packaging submitted is in the slideshow above, the song is embedded below.

The students’ first task in the ‘Geographies of Material Culture’ module at the University of Exeter is to make a personal connection between their lives and the lives of others elsewhere in the world who made the things they buy. These are the people who help you to be you, followthethings.com CEO Ian tells them. So choose a commodity that matters to you, that’s an important part of your identity, that you couldn’t do without. Think about its component parts, its materials, and what properties they give to that commodity and your experience of ‘consuming’ it. Student Jennifer Hart feels guilty about the conflict minerals in her mobile phone. Then she finds that the heart pacemaker her mum is having fitted also contains those minerals. It’s a lifesaving operation. How can she reconcile her mum’s suffering and that of these minerals’ miners? How best can she express her feelings about this technological object? By making a pacemaker that knows what she knows, feels what she feels, and can sing about it. A pacemaker that can express a huge thank you.

Page reference: Jennifer Hart, J. (2014) The First Ever Pacemaker To Speak For Itself. followthethings.com/pacemaker.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated listening & reading time: 10 minutes.

Posted on September 20, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Phone Story

followthethings.com
Electronics

2011

APPLE

IPHONE

MINED IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

SHOW CAPITALIST EVILS

REACH NEW AUDIENCES

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

TARGET THE RIGHT BRAND

TAKE IT TO PIECES

MAKE IT META

MAKE THE HIDDEN VISIBLE

INCLUDE HAUNTING & HORROR

INCLUDE SUFFERING KIDS

MAKE A WEBSITE

STREISAND EFFECT

“Phone Story“
An iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad game created by Paolo Pedercini & Michael Pineschi for Molleindustria in partnership with the Yes Lab.
Banned from the App Store. Google Play archived page here. Play online here. Game website here.

Imagine you’re on Apple’s App Store looking for a new game to play on your iPhone or iPad in September 2011. You see one called Phone Story. Its levels show how your iPhone or iPad were made. The rare metals that make them work so quickly – like Coltan – are extracted from the soil in the Democratic Republic of The Congo by children. The devices are made in a factory in China where the regime is so relentless that workers jump to their deaths from the roof. When a new model comes out, people queue for days and it seems they would run across a busy highway to get to the store before someone else. And then there’s all the e-waste that is generated when the phones that are replaced get thrown away. So, how do you progress through the levels? You’re a soldier who has to bash kids on the back of the head if their Coltan-digging slows. You’re ambulance crew trying to catch workers trying to jump to their deaths from the factory roof. You get the picture. This ‘first anti-iPhone iPhone game’ is hilariously cruel, tasteless, offensive, meta. But it’s 100% based on what’s happening in Apple’s supply chain right now. And what’s more offensive: the game or what it depicts? 901 people pay 99cents and download it. But it’s only available for 4 days, before Apple remove it. People speculate. How on earth did it get there in the first place? And what does its removal mean for free speech? Phone Story went viral as the ‘game Apple didn’t want you to play’. But, you could still play it on your Android phone or computer. You can still do the latter, here. How well would you want to do? What does it mean to get a high score?

Page reference: Eeva Kemppainen, Charlotte Edwards, Toby Bain, Wilhelm Wrede, Sophie Biddulph & Jamie Hall (2012) Phone Story. followthethings.com/phonestory.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 46 minutes.

Posted on September 2, 2024January 26, 2025 by Ian Cook

Planet Money Makes A T-Shirt

followthethings.com
Fashion

MULTIMEDIA JOURNALISM

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

CROWDFUND YOUR WORK

HAVE IT MADE

MAKE IT META

“Planet Money Makes A T-Shirt“
A podcast series, webdoc & YouTube playlist in NPR’s ‘Planet Money’ series produced by Alex Blumberg.
YouTube playlist embedded above. Listen to the Podcast series here. Visit the webdoc here. Visit the NPR store here.

The USA National Public Radio’s ‘Planet Money’ plans a series of programmes on the international cotton industry, from seed to t-shirt. But they’re not interested in investigating who makes K-Mart or Walmart or H&M t-shirts. Instead, they launch a kickstarter campaign. If enough people pledge $25, their reporters will travel the world to find out who makes a T-shirt that they commission. This means that they can talk directly to farmers, factory owners, workers, shippers and others involed in bringing that shirt to the market. If they find stories of environmental or labour exploitation, it’s their own brand that will be damaged. 25,000 are made. Each features a squirrel hoisting a martini glass (a jokey reference to what economist John Maynard Keynes referred to as capitalism’s ‘animal spirits’). Each pledger was sent a t-shirt as a reward for their investment. Other people could buy one from NPR’s online store.

Page reference: Emelia Price, Steph Small, Sophie Blakstand, Maisie Jenyon, Catt Suttie, Hannah Cookson, Laura Johnston & Abigail Spink (2025) Planet Money Makes A T-Shirt (taster). followthethings.com/planet-money-makes-a-t-shirt.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes.

Posted on August 28, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Simpson’s couch gag (series 22, episode 3)

followthethings.com
Fashion | Gifts & Seasonal

SHOW CAPITALIST EVILS

INVOLVE A CELEBRITY

REACH NEW AUDIENCES

MAKE THE HIDDEN VISIBLE?

“Simpson’s couch gag (series 22, episode 3)“
An animated ‘couch gag’ intro to an episode of The Simpson’s directed by Banksy & produced by Matt Groening for 20th Century Fox.

Every episode of The Simpsons opens with a ‘couch gag’. The one in episode 3 of series 22 is guest-directed by the British graffiti artist Banksy. Starting as usual with a tour of Springfield which ends with the Simpson family sitting on their couch in front of the TV, it then takes viewers into the unbelievably exploitative South Korean sweatshops where the show’s animators work and Simpsons merchandise – including t-shirts, toys and DVDs – is produced. This gag clearly doesn’t show exploitation that’s happening along 20th Century Fox’s real world supply chains. Ranks of animators don’t work in grim and grimy sweatshop conditions with child labourers, rats and toxic chemicals. Unicorns don’t punch the holes in their DVDs. And the tongues of severed dolphin heads don’t lick the tape that seals warehouse boxes. The animators pointed this out afterwards. So what was Banksy trying to say? Lots of people speculated online.

Page reference: Will Davies, Thomas Edwards, Joseph Englert, Chris Henshall, James Osbaldeston, Jack Parkin, Michael Swann & Aidan Waller, (2018) Simpson’s couch gag (series 22, episode 3). followthethings.com/simpsons-couch-gag.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 32 minutes.

Posted on August 28, 2024January 26, 2025 by Ian Cook

Cries For Help Found In Primark Clothes (a.k.a. ‘Labelgate’)

Label found by Rebecca Jones
Label found by Rebecca Gallagher
Letter found by Karen Wisinska

followthethings.com
Fashion

“Cries For Help Found In Primark Clothes (a.k.a. ‘Labelgate’)”
Social media posts by Rebecca Jones, Rebecca Gallagher, and Amnesty International Northern Ireland.
Label photos originally posted online embedded above.

Shoppers Rebecca Jones and Rebecca Gallagher find an extra label in dresses they buy from Primark stores in South Wales. One says ‘Forced to work exhausting hours’, the other ‘Degrading sweatshop conditions’. Belfast shopper Karen Wisinska then finds a letter in the pocket of some Primark shorts. It’s written in Chinese, but starts ‘SOS! SOS! SOS!’. It seems to be a coincidence. Rebecca, Rebecca and Karen post them online to share what they have found with their friends and followers. Their posts set off an international ‘whodunnit?’ which makes the national news and ties the company’s PR department in knots. Are they genuine? Are they mischief-making of an artist or activist? Either way, is what they say true?

Will Kelleher & Ian Cook (2014) Cries for help found in Primark clothes (a.k.a. ‘labelgate’). followthethings.com/cries-for-help-found-in-primark-clothes.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 93 minutes.

Posted on August 28, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Behind The Leather

followthethings.com
Fashion | My Shopping Bag

“Behind The Leather“
An activist stunt by Ogilvy and Mather Advertising, Bangkok for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia.
YouTube video embedded above.

A new luxury store called ‘Leather Works’ opens at the high end CentralWorld mall in Bangkok selling coats, ties, gloves and bags. Shoppers come in to browse. As they touch and try them on, they see flesh, bones, muscles and sinews inside. As they open the handbags, there are beating hearts too. Shoppers get blood on their hands. This leather was clearly ripped from the bodies of crocodiles, snakes, lizards and other ‘exotic’ animals. It’s like a scene from a horror film. Shoppers recoil in shock. These luxury leather goods are disgusting. The video goes viral. Behind this shopping prank is an NGO called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the ad agency Ogilvy & Mather who made it all for them. PETA’s Asia office wants to draw attention to the cruel conditions under which ‘exotic’ animals are farmed and butchered for luxury leather fashion. But how genuine, how ethical, can a ‘hidden camera’ stunt like this be? What can these shock tactics do?

Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2024) Behind The Leather (taster). followthethings.com/behind-the-leather.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes.

Posted on August 19, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

followthethings.com Shopping Bag

followthethings.com
My shopping bag

2011

FOLLOWTHETHINGS.COM

REUSABLE SHOPPING BAG

ENCOURAGE DETECTIVE WORK

“followthethings.com Shopping Bag“
A limited edition run of 5,000 reusable plastic shopping bags designed by Daisy Livingston & Aidan Waller and distributed freely to support the launch of the followthethings.com website.
The last bag was given away in 2016. Still in circulation.

The followthethings.com launch team are keen to create some merchandise to promote their website. Intern Daisy had submitted a printed cotton bag she had had manufactured in China as coursework for Ian’s ‘Geographies of Material Culture’ module. It was the most original, imaginative coursework he had ever seen. That’s because it wasn’t just about the geographies of material culture, it embodied them, materialised them. Ian hired Daisy as an intern and asked her to design and order some reusable shopping bags for followthethings.com’s launch. Fellow intern Aiden helped out. These needed to be just like the ones that we used for our supermarket shopping at Sainsbury’s, Tesco, ASDA, Morrisons. They were pretty standard in their construction. But where were they made? From what materials? How could you find out? What could you find out about the pay and conditions of the people who made them? Quite a bit, it turned out, if you had your own made in the same places. What insights could this privileged business-to-business customer perspective provide? And what could happen after you put these mischievous shopping bags into circulation? Especially when the meaning of ‘shopping’ in the project – and on the bags – was double: i.e. both ‘to seek or examine goods, property, etc. offered for sale in or by’ and ‘to behave treacherously toward; inform on; betray’ or ‘to give away information about’ those goods, property, etc. (Anon nd). Once you read about our bag, you can apply its lessons to the ones that you have…

Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2024) followthethings.com Shopping Bags. followthethings.com/followthethings-com-shopping bag.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 21 minutes.

Label found by Rebecca Jones

Label found by Rebecca Gallagher

Letter found by Karen Wisinska