2011 – followthethings.com

“Big Boys Gone Bananas!*“
A documentary film directed by Fredrik Gertten for WG Film AG, Sweden
Free trailer and on-demand stream embedded above. Search online for other streaming options here.
The second of two films on this topic. The first is “Bananas!*”. See our page on this here. See the films’ website here.

Swedish documentary filmmaker Fredrik Gertten and his small film company team are looking forward to the premiere of their courtroom documentary Bananas!* at the Los Angeles Film Festival. It follows a class action case in the California courts where a group of Nicaraguan Banana farm workers hold the Dole corporation accountable for their sexual impotence by making them use an agrochemical that had been banned because it caused it. Their case is put together by a California-based attorney, and the documentary includes grainy in-court testimony not only by the farmers but also by the Dole bosses who made the decision to continue using that agrochemical. The film documents a success story, more or less, with significant financial compensation being awarded to the workers. This is a test case. The first of its kind. So more cases will follow. More costs for Dole. More embarrassment. So Dole fights back, mounting a sophisticated public relations campaign to discredit the case (charging its lawyer with fraud) and the film (claiming it’s uncritically promoting this lawyer’s fraud). This campaign starts before the film has been screened. By people who have not seen it. News articles appear reporting that the film is a fraud. The festival is forced to withdraw it from competition, to show it at a remote theatre, and the festival director has to read out a disclaimer before it’s shown there. Then negative reviews start to appear as soon as it’s seen. Can this seemingly coordinated effort to silence corporate critique succeed? What would you do as a filmmaker if this happened to you? Gertten does what he knows best. He turns his camera on and makes a film about Dole’s attempts to discredit his film. He steps out from behind the camera to become its central character. Unbelievable things are happening to him, to the people he works with, and to the film they made together. But his film company had taken out an insurance policy that allowed them to pay for expensive legal help to fight back. They cleverly coordinate an counter-information and crowndfunding campaign. And a surprising international collection of allies come to their aid. Dole’s efforts to censor Bananas!* are a complete failure and, more than anything, make it and this Big Boys sequel a 100% must see double-bill for anyone interested in trade justice actvism. Read below to see how this story unfolds. It’s a genuine ‘David vs. Goliath’ story. You could never make this up! There’s so much to learn from this. Buckle up.

Page reference: Camilla Muirhead, Katie Lambert, Katie Joyce, Will Sensecall, Izzie Snowden, Matt Creagh & Harry Cousens (2020) Big Boys Gone Bananas!*. followthethings.com/big-boys-gone-bananas.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 1 hour 53 minutes.

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

Phone Story

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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 20, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Louise Mensch On Occupy London-LSX (HIGNFY)

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Grocery | Electronics | Home & Auto

DISTRACT FROM REALITY

CHANGE CITIZEN BEHAVIOUR

PUT YOUR BODIES IN THE WAY

HOPE FOR A Q&A

MAKE IT FAMILIAR

INVOLVE SOME CELEBRITIES

“Louise Mensch On Occupy London-LSX (HIGNFY)“
A discussion on BBCTV’s satirical news panel show Have I Got News For You (HIGNFY), featuring Louise Mensch, Danny Baker, Paul Merton and Ian Hislop, chaired by Alexander Armstrong.
Discussion embedded above on YouTube HIGNFY highlights reel.

The Conservative MP Louise Mensch and the comedy writer Danny Baker are guests on a Friday night satirical news panel show in October 2011. The Occupy camp outside London’s St Paul’s cathedral has just become front page news. The host Alexander Armstrong asks the panellists to comment on what’s happening. Mensch argues that these Occupy protestors can’t be against capitalism when they’re enjoying its fruits – like the ‘fancy tents’ they’re living in, the iPhones they’re tweeting from and the Starbucks coffees they’re queuing for. The other panellists disagree and mock her argument. She seems to be saying that anyone who participates in capitalism should not be criticising it. And, if people are critical of capitalism, you don’t have to listen to what they say. This is the ‘hypocrite’ accusation that even the mildest anti-capitalist can expect. It’s a strategy for dismissing criticism of trade injustice , and was quickly labelled the ‘Mensch Fallacy’. Taken to its extreme, it means that only people with zero involvement in capitalism can criticise it. And that’s nobody on earth! Here at followthethings.com, we love to spot patterns in audiences’ responses to trade justice activism. This is a big one. This page looks at the only example on our site that is a response, and the way that the panellists and audiences online challenged it. Read on.

Page reference: Jon Chick, Matt Bhol, Dee Wood, Tom Lyle, Olly Woodford & Henry Owen (2012) Louise Mensch On Occupy London-LSX (HIGNFY). followthethings.com/louise-mensch-on-occupy-london-lsx-hignfy.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 49 minutes.

Posted on August 28, 2024February 11, 2025 by Ian Cook

Girl Model: The Truth Behind The Glamour

followthethings.com
Fashion | Health & Beauty

SHOW CAPITALIST EVILS

START SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT

START WITH A PARADOX

FIND A CHARACTER

FOLLOW THE PEOPLE

INCLUDE SUFFERING KIDS

BRING MANAGERS INTO VIEW

“Girl Model: The Truth Behind The Glamour”
A documentary film directed by David Redmon & Ashley Sabin for Carnivalesque Films.
Trailer embedded above. Available in full on Kanopy (with institutional login) here. Search Google for other streaming here and purchasing opportunities here. Website including ‘take action’ advice here.

How do 13, 14, 15 year old girls from Novosibirsk, Siberia end up on the pages of fashion magazines in Japan? Filmmakers David Redmon & Ashey Sabin follow 13 year old Nadya Vall who is scouted in her bra and pants by former model Ashley Arbaugh who finds her look ‘extraordinary’. Nadya wants to live the glamorous life in Tokyo that Ashley’s modelling agency could provide her with, and could earn much-needed money for her family back home. But the reality she experiences in Tokyo is starkly different. She is lonely, hungry and broke. What is it about Japanese fashion culture that values skinny white blonde blue-eyed Europeans teens? Especially as it dehumanises them, treats them as commodities, when they become part of it. Ashley knows she works in a parasitical industry and is conflicted. ‘Girl Model’ is an exposé of its creepiness and exploitation. It’s uncomfortable viewing for its audiences (to put it mildly), and for the people who feature in it. Some of them say that it’s not an accurate portrayal. Nadya calls co-director Redmon a ‘sexual predator’. But is this true or is it what you would have to say if you wanted to continue working in the industry? Models working around the world recognised themselves in the film and shared their experiences online. The film became a rallying cry and campaigning tool to push for change in the industry. It had a powerful impact and features on our site because, here, it’s the workers are the commodities and their supply chain stretches from Sibreria to Japan.

Page reference: Adele Hambly, Elaine King, Andy Keogh, Camilla Renny-Smith, Ed Callow, Joe Thorogood & Vicky Alloy (2025) Girl Model: The Truth Behind The Glamour. followthethings.com/girl-model.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 118 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.