Culture jam – followthethings.com

“How To Run A Subvertisement Workshop“
A subvertisement workshop designed by Eeva Kemppainen for Eettisen kaupan puolesta ry (Pro Ethical Trade Finland).
Workshop video embedded above. ‘How to’ booklets available to download in Finnish here and English here. Eeva’s project blog is here. An archive of subvertisements produced by students can be found on Flick here. This page was originally published on the followthethings.com blog here.

Eeva Kemppainen took the ‘Geographies of material culture’ module that’s behind our site as an Erasmus student, did her Masters research at the University of Helsinki on the pedagogy she had experienced in the module and went on to work for the pro-Fair Trade NGO Eettisen kaupan puolesta (a.k.a. Eetti) in Helsinki. In 2014, she published a paper in the Finnish journal Natura (here) about ways in which her work for Eetti tried to engage students in humorous critiques of consumption and advertising through a pedagogy of culture jamming. In 2016 Eetti published Eeva’s booklet Medialukutaitoa vastamainoksista (also published in English as Teaching media literacy and the geographies of consumption) which set out how to run culture jamming workshops – like the one in the video above – and showcased the kinds of work that students produced. The booklet drew inspiration from a number of examples of trade justice culture jamming from the followthethings.com website. What can students examine, then cut up, rearrange and/or scribble on magazine adverts? They try to subvert advertising’s messages so that the information that is hidden – including the lives of the people who make what’s being advertised – is made visible. What they produce are called ‘subvertisments’. In this post, Eeva describes how she organises these workshops, and showcases some of the work that students can produce.

Page reference: Eeva Kemppainen (2015) How To Run A Subvertisemeht Workshop. followthethings.com/how-t-run-a-subvertisement-workshop.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes.

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

iPhone 4CF

followthethings.com
Electronics

2010

APPLE

IPHONE

SOURCED IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

SOLD WORLDWIDE

CULTURE JAM

CHANGE CORPORATE BEHAVIOUR

SHOW WHAT’S POSSIBLE

TARGET THE RIGHT BRAND

CHOOSE THE RIGHT THING

TAKE IT TO PIECES

CREATE A COMMUNITY

JOIN THE DOTS

RE-DESIGN THE COMMODITY

MAKE IT BETTER

LIE TO TELL THE TRUTH

HAVE A THEORY OF CHANGE

SHOW SOCIAL JUSTICE

PLACE THINGS CAREFULLY

PUT YOUR BODIES IN THE WAY

MOBILISE THE FANDOM

INVOLVE CONSUMERS

ENCOURAGE A (FAKE) BUYCOTT

MAKE IT FUNNY

“iPhone 4CF“
A spoof website, press release and direct action by The Yes Men & students from the Parsons New School for Design via the Yes Lab.
Website pages embedded in slideshow above. Original iPhone CF website – www.apple-cf.com – shut down. Now partly available here.

Culture-jammers the Yes Men create a spoof ‘Apple’ website to launch a new iPhone whose ingredients are ‘conflict free’. They announce that you can upgrade your iPhone 4 to the conflict-free version free of charge. Working with students from the Parsons School in New York, they dress up as Apple Store employees and hand out leaflets that encourage shoppers to go inside and upgrade their iPhone to a conflict-free one, at no charge. This is such a brilliant idea, especially with all the recent news stories about a civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where these regular iPhones’ rare earth ‘conflict minerals’ could be sourced. For many, Apple is taking the lead in this highly competitive and fast moving sector. As it always loves to shout about. It’s acting to remove conflict minerals in its supply chains, and inviting its shoppers to come on board as ethical consumers. When the shoppers take their leaflets into the store and are refused their free upgrade… When they realise that a ‘conflict free iPhone’ does not exist… When the Apple Store staff, many of whom were pleasantly surprised that Apple was doing this, realise that some of the people who look like their colleagues may be activists causing trouble… When the police are called in… When the story gets into the press (the whole idea) and Apple is forced to quickly publish a press release denying that a conflict-free iPhone exists… When the Yes Men quickly release a fake Apple press release that explains what the company is (not) doing to remove conflict minerals from its supply chains… When Apple forces the web host for The Yes Men’s fake iPhone 4CF website to take it down within hours… … the knowledge that Apple’s iPhones contain ‘conflict minerals’ has become an international news story. It helps that the Yes Men are highly experienced corporate impersonators (they call this ‘identity correction’). It helps that the carefully planned and often hilarious unravelling of the lies they tell are a magnet for business journalists who often don’t have many fun stories to report. And it helps that this is a positive critique: it’s perfectly possible that Apple could produce a conflict-free iPhone if it put its mind to it. This isn’t a negative, anti-capitalist critique of Apple – although the company seems to respond as if it is – it’s a good idea. They’ve shown what it looks like. How Apple could market it. That shoppers would trade their only iPhones for a conflict-free upgrade. Critics call the activists’ understanding of supply chain sourcing and the war in the DRC simplistic, but this prank kickstarts a debate which – years later – saw the production of conflict free smartphones. We plan to add a page to followthethings.com about the most famous of these – the Fairphone – in due course.

Page reference: Jack Parkin (2018) iPhone 4CF. followthethings.com/iphone-4cf.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Page also available in Finnish here (coming soon)

Estimated reading time: tbc minutes.

Posted on December 16, 2024January 8, 2025 by Ian Cook

The Nike Email Exchange (NEE)

followthethings.com
Sport & Fitness

2001

NIKE

PERSONALISED ‘ID’ SHOES

TARGET THE RIGHT BRAND

CHOOSE THE RIGHT THING

PLAY WITH BRANDING

RE-DESIGN THE COMMODITY

MAKE IT PROVOCATIVE

MAKE IT META

INCLUDE SUFFERING KIDS

BRING MANAGERS INTO VIEW

“The Nike Email Exchange (NEE)“
An email exchange between student Jonah Peretti and the Nike Corporation.
The full email exchange was posted online on shey.net. Screengrab above. Read the whole exchange here.

Student Jonah Peretti experiments with Nike’s offer to customise its shoes with words you type into its ID website. Most people would add their name or their team’s name but he wants to add the word ‘sweatshop’ to a pair of running shoes. He wants to do this so that he can ‘remember the toil and labor of the children that made my shoes’. Nike say no. Peretti replies, arguing it’s OK. They say no. He replies again, saying he hasn’t breached their ID guidelines. They say no again. They just won’t let him do it. So he forwards the conversation to friends by email. They forward it to friends, who forward it to their friends, who …. It’s posted on a website called shey.net (above) and, within six weeks, millions have read it. Next, he’s invited onto national US TV to debate sweatshops with a Nike executive. This is one of the most iconic examples of viral online trade justice activism that happens 3 years before facebook is founded. It’s also an iconic example of the activist tactic of ‘culture jamming’ – turning a brand’s values and identity against itself. Peretti didn’t consider himself (or what he did) to be ‘activist’, he was just messing around with the opportunity that Nike gave its customer to personalise their shoes. What he did became known as the ‘Nike Email Exchange’ (or NEE) and was a important part of a swarm of public criticisms of Nike’s record on labour rights – including Indonesian Nike factory worker Cicih Sukaesih’s North American speaking tour [see our page here] – that cemented its sweatshop reputation in the late 1990s and 2000s. It’s also an iconic example in trade justice activism research. Peretti gave researchers Dietlind Stolle and Michele Micheletti the email addresses of everyone to whom he sent the email string, and everyone who replied to it. They got in touch to ask them about the impacts that it had had on them as citizens and consumers. The publications that emerged from this helped establish a significant body of scholarship on what’s called ‘political consumerism’. After becoming a public figure through the NEE, Peretti continued to experiment with viral online media before setting up Buzzfeed in 2006.

Page reference: Edward Jennings, Alex Hargreaves, Matt Goddard, Amy Joslin, Millie Whittington & Charles Bell (2024) The Nike Email Exchange (NEE). followthethings.com/the-nike-email-exchange-nee.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 73 minutes.

Posted on December 6, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Cyborg Information Leaflet: Thyroxine 50 Microgram Tablets

followthethings.com
Health & Beauty

2004

UNBRANDED

THYROXINE TABLETS

INGREDIENT GROWN IN EGYPT

CHOOSE THE RIGHT THING

TAKE IT TO PIECES

FIND LOST RELATIONS

WORRY ABOUT ANIMALS

REDESIGN THE COMMODITY

MAKE IT META

MAKE IT SNAPPY

“Cyborg Information Leaflet: Thyroxine 50 Microgram Tablets“
Undergraduate coursework created by Alison Buckler.

The students’ first task in the ‘Geographies of Material Culture’ module at the University of Birmingham 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. Because you’re a cyborg, your body cannot function without the people, animals, technologies, networks that makes its inputs like food and medicine. 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 the properties they give to that commodity and your experience of ‘consuming it’. See what you can find online and write a 500 word first person account that connects your lives. One student – Alison Buckler – chose the most personal example we ever saw, a medicine that’s keeping her alive. It’s not a discretionary commodity that she could do without. It’s not something where there’s an organic of fair trade alternative. So what can she find out about its origins, it’s life before it came into her life and made such a positive difference? And how can she convey what she has learned? In every box of pills, there’s a patient information leaflet. So Alison rewrites the one that comes with her Thyroxine tablets to provide a different kinds of information for a patient. A different understanding of their body and the way that it works, and what’s helping this medicine to help it work. This leaflet’s information is based on an extroverted sense of the body – a cyborg ontology – where the inside and the outside are intimately linked. What comes with this are senses of both astonishment and guilt. This was the first follow-the-meds example to appear on followthethings.com, and it inspired all the others…

Page reference: Alison Buckler (2004) Cyborg Information Leaflet: Thyroxine 50 Microgram Tablets. followthethings.com/cyborg-information-leaflet-thyroxine-50-microgram.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes.

Posted on November 29, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Teleshopping AK-47

followthethings.com
Security

2006

KALASHNIKOV

AK-47 ASSAULT RIFLE

SOURCED IN EASTERN EUROPE

USED IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

CHANGE GOVERNMENT BEHAVIOUR

END VIOLENCE & EXPLOITATION

MAKE THE HIDDEN VISIBLE

CHOOSE THE RIGHT THING

CREATE SOME CHARACTERS

INVOLVE CONSUMERS

PLACE THINGS CAREFULLY

LIE TO TELL THE TRUTH

MAKE IT FUNNY

MAKE IT SNAPPY

MAKE IT AVAILABLE

PROMPT GOOD CITIZENSHIP

“Teleshopping AK-47“
A spoof teleshopping channel promotion directed by Dougal Wilson and post-produced by MPC for Mother, commissioned by Amnesty International.
Full video embedded above. Search online for versions with other titles here.

Amnesty International is trying to get 1 million people involved in their campaign to tighten loopholes in international arms trade legislation. To demonstrate how easy it is to buy weapons like AK-47 assault rifles, how cheap they are, and how they end up being used in armed conflicts (often involving child soldiers), they commission some culture jamming. Its a short video that imagines that these weapons can be sold by cheery presenters on TV shopping channel’s chintzy pastel-coloured set, just like ice-cream makers and his ‘n’ hers dressing gowns. They’re perfect for child soldiers, the presenters say, like those in Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They give one to a child to demonstrate on set, who cheerfully shoots a mannequin to pieces. Amnesty commission this darkly comedic, camp and chilling 135 second film to show in cinemas, alongside the real ads. They publish it on YouTube. Later, it’s included as an extra on the DVD of Nicholas Cage’s Hollywood arms trade blockbuster Lord of War [see our page on its Life of a bullet opening credits here]. Amnesty can’t advertise on UK TV because they’re a political organisation. And the use of pastiche / parody / humour is a novel approach in human rights campaigning in 2006. But Amnesty really go for it. On top of the cinema ad, there’s a viral email campaign, spoof arms shopping catalogues are delivered through people’s doors, and pop-up high street weapons shops open around the UK with live shooting demonstrations. Commenters are shocked by this disgusting, deeply sinister but informative campaign. One says these weapons are beautiful and every American should have one. Another pretends to agree, saying that guns don’t kill people, people do and, if guns were taken away, people could just as easily kill eachother with knives or rubber ducks. Some say humour is inappropriate for such a serious topic. Others say the ad and the catalogue is so light, so beautifully done, so plausible, that it’s perfect for generating conversations about the international arms trade and its (lack of) regulation.

Page reference: Daisy Livingston (2024) Teleshopping AK-47. followthethings.com/teleshopping-ak-47.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 30 minutes.

Posted on November 8, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

B’eau Pal Water

followthethings.com
Grocery

SHOW CAPITALIST EVILS

CHANGE CORPORATE BEHAVIOUR

MAKE THE HIDDEN VISIBLE

MAKE IT META

LIE TO TELL THE TRUTH

REDESIGN THE COMMODITY

PLACE THINGS CAREFULLY

BRING MANAGERS INTO VIEW

“B’eau Pal Water“
A spoof commodity-based activist campaign created by the Yes Men and the Bhopal Medical Appeal.
Video playlist embedded above posted on YouTube by the Bhopal Medical Appeal.

It’s the 25th anniversary of the Union Carbide chemical factory explosion in Bhopal, India. It’s the worst industrial accident in history. 3,700 people died immediately. Between 8,000 and 25,000 people had died since. And up to 200,000 were permanently injured and countless more continued to be affected by the leaching of toxic chemicals into the water table. Still, the factory’s owners (Dow Chemical, who bought Union Carbide) refuse to pay compensation. So the Bhopal Medical Appeal get together with pranksters the Yes Men to design a new brand of bottled water. It’s a mineral water. B’eau Pal Water. A taste of Bhopal. “Bottled at source”, they say. Presented in a beautifully designed bottle. The Yes Men travel to Dow’s UK HQ to challenge its executives to drink it, just as Bhopal residents have for the past 25 years. When they arrive, the building is empty. Why won’t they drink this? When they offer it to passing members of the public , everyone understandably refuses once they know what’s in it. So is this campaign a success? Does it draw renewed attention to this long-running scandal? Is it OK that what they’re doing is ridiculous, funny, and that people are disgusted but also laughing about this prank? The Bhopal explosion wasn’t funny. So is this prank in poor taste? Is it offensive? Or can its humour embarrass Dow and bring the Bhopal factory explosion back into the news cycle? Can offering people a fancy bottle of toxic mineral water that they would never drink bring them closer to the people living in Bhopal who have no choice but to drink it? What’s the logical response to this? What has to happen to make this situation right? This bottled water later becomes a potent symbol of the compensation campaign at the 2012 London Olympics – where Dow is a corporate sponsor and a Bhopal survivor challenges the chair of its organising committee to drink it – and in Bhopal itself, when the victims and their families invite the Indian politicians and scientific advisors who had dismissed their complaints about contamination to a buffet of toxic delicacies including bottled B’eau Pal Water.

Page reference: Jack Parkin (2018) B’eau Pal Water. followthethings.com/beau-pal-water.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 44 minutes.

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

The First Ever Pacemaker To Speak For Itself

followthethings.com
Health & Beauty

2014

UNBRANDED

HEART PACEMAKER

MINED IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

REDESIGN THE COMMODITY

ENCOURAGE THANKFULNESS

“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 August 28, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Beautiful Clothes, Ugly Reality

followthethings.com
Fashion

IMPROVE PAY & CONDITIONS

START SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT

MAKE IT FAMILIAR

MAKE IT PROVOCATIVE

FLIP THE SCRIPT!

WORKERS TAKE THE MIC!

ADD MOOD MUSIC

“Beautiful Clothes, Ugly Reality“
A parody catwalk show by garment factory workers sponsored by the Workers’ Information Centre & United Sisterhood Alliance, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, filmed & posted online by Heather Stillwell. See the Chenla Media version here.

Six months after police shot into a crowd of protesting garment workers in Phnom Penh, Cambodian garment workers turned to another kind of protest, a fashion show. Wearing the clothes they were paid so little to make and re-creating scenes from the violent crackdown on their street protests on stage, they challenged Western brands to play their part in stopping this violence and exploitation and paying the people who make their clothes a decent wage. Canadian photojournalist Heather Stillwell’s online film of the show went went viral. How did this happen, and what impacts did it have?

Page reference: Caroline Weston Goodman (2018) Beautiful Clothes, Ugly Reality. followthethings.com/beautiful-clothes-ugly-reality.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Page also available in Finnish here (coming soon)

Estimated reading time: 50 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 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.