Make it meta – followthethings.com

“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 13, 2024January 8, 2025 by Ian Cook

iPhone 3G – Already With Pictures! (aka ‘iPhone Girl’)

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Electronics

WORKERS TAKE THE MIC!

USE YOUR PRIVILEGE

BE THE CHARACTER

HUMANISE THINGS

PUT A MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

ENCOURAGE DETECTIVE WORK

FIND A CHARACTER

ASK FOR HELP

“iPhone 3G – Already With Pictures! (aka ‘iPhone Girl’)“
Three photos of an anonymous iPhone factory worker found on a new iPhone and posted on the MacRumors forum by markm49uk.
MacRumors post screengrabbed and shown above. See the original post (and comments) here.

markm49uk has just bought a new iPhone 3G. He’s carefully unboxed and unwrapped it. He turns it on. Checks the photos. And find that it’s come pre-loaded with three images. It’s a young Chinese woman, seeming working on an iPhone production line. She’s smiling, making peace signs with her hands. She looks happy. markm49uk is curious. He posts the photos on MacRumors to see if anyone else has found fun photos like these on their new iPhones. Nobody else seems to have, but his post ignites an international ‘whodunnit?’ that starts in MacRumor comments and spreads far far beyond as forum members re-post the photos and markm49uk’s questions elsewhere. Who is this person? Where does she work? Will she get in trouble for this? Is she working in one of the Apple factories in China where workers have been committing suicide because of the working conditions? Why does she look so happy? Is she an Apple (or Foxconn – their manufacturer) plant? Is she just smiling because she’s having her photo taken? Why is someone taking her photograph with the phone that markm49uk bought? Are they testing its? Are all smartphones tested like this? Why weren’t these photos erased? What did markm49uk do with those photos? Did he keep them on his phone? Other people downloaded one to add to their phone’s home screen. To acknowledge the labour that went into their phone. They said it was partly her phone too because she helped to make it. So she should be visible. We, and so many others who came across these photos, love this example. It’s inspired other Apple activism because of its surprising warmth and humanity. Part of the reason it went viral is that it was a mystery for people to solve. There were so many unanswered questions! Another reason is because so many commenters thought this was an accident. All of the other worker ‘message in a bottle‘ examples on followthethings.com imagine a consumer receiving their message and hopefully doing what they ask them to do. But this example has no explicit message. Nobody seems to know what this young woman – and the person who took her photos – is trying to say. All of the tactics buttons we’ve chosen above are based on an assumption that the work we feature is a) activism and b) deliberate. But what if it’s just a few fun photos that one workmate took of another and forgot to delete? Why would such a simple accident cause such a stir? Why would it cause so many people to talk about trade injustice in Apple’s supply chains? We think it’s simple. Apple’s press at the time was all about worker suicides in its Chinese factories. But this worker seemed to be happy. How could that be possible, even in the few moments it takes to snap a few phone pictures? For many, these photos show something different. The discussions are fascinating.

Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2024) iPhone 3G – Already With Pictures! (aka ‘iPhone Girl’). followthethings.com/iphone-3g-already-with-pictures-aka-iphone-girl.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 71 minutes.

Posted on December 11, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Our New Commemorative £2 coin

followthethings.com
Money & Finance

“Our Commemorative £2 Coin“
Undergraduate coursework written by Mike Swan, Will Davies, Emma Christie-Miller, Becky Woolford, Meagan Wheatley, Maddie Redfern, Robbie Black, Lucy Webber, Jade Stevens, Katy Charlton & Tom Bollands (a.k.a Royally Minted).
Available in full below. Originally posted online here.

In 2010, students start the ‘Geographies of Material Culture’ by researching different examples of trade justice activism to add to the followthethings.com website (not all of them made it). Next, students who have researched different examples came together to create their own original examples of trade justice activism. They pick up some important ideas from their own research and what has already been published here on followthethings.com. They know the importance of looking beyond the usual suspects of follow the things activist – phones, fashion and food – and think about something they don’t think about, something that’s made by doesn’t have a ‘made in’ label, something that’s jangling in all of their pockets: coins. They know that they’re made of metal, but have no idea which ones or where they might be mined by whom. They’ve read about commodities embodying the labour of their creators, and being haunted by them. They’re carrying around, they’re spending, the labour of those mine workers. It’s easy to find which metals are in coins. The organisations that mint them tend to say so. And it’s not difficult to find newspaper, NGO and occupational toxicology research that profiles the labour that goes into mining these metals around the world, the multiple forms of pollution caused by this mining and the damage this does to people’s health, social structures and the environment. The group’s task is to think about how best to present their findings, to make those lives part of this thing, to insert those lives into the lives of coins and their transaction. 2010 sees the UK’s Royal Mint releasing a two commemorative £2 coins: to mark 150 years of modern nursing and the 100 years since the death of Florence Nightingale. The group – now calling themselves ‘Royally Minted’ – decide to design a third that will commemorate the labour that goes into mining those coins’ metals. They look at the Royal Mint’s commemorative coin webpages and mimic their format and content. It’s all very celebratory, very collectable. These students are particularly inspired by forms of activism – like the Suffragette Penny [see our page on this here] – which puts political issues into circulation on and as commodities. Money – with its unique status as a commodity and a means of exchange – is a perfect vehicle for political messages. If only the Royal Mint would commission this.

Page reference: Royally Minted (2010) Our New Commemorative £2 Coin. followthethings.com/our-new-commemorative-£2-coin.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes.

Posted on December 9, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Barracetamol’s Family Reunion

'Hi, I'm Barracetamol.'
'This is my old friend Benson. I never knew whayt we was talking about until I read this.'
'Me, back with my half broither talc!'
'Multivitamins and iron contain maize starch and talk just like me... I was separated from the talc in those vitamins many years ago in a talc mine'.
Barracetamil put on some neon face paint. Guess what? It contains talc.
Boozy Barry 'just chilling with my maize starch pals x.'
'I LOVE UNCLE COSTA CUP. We are made of the same materials! xxxxxxxxxxx.'
'Everyone I meet says I look a bit pasty so I decided to reunite the Talc in me with another product using talc-bronzer!'
'This royal red paint may contain talc'.
'I heard my friends in people's suitcases.'
'I stopped using toothpaste as it contains talc.'
'With my American cousins in Providence, R.I.: June 2013'.

followthethings.com
Health & Beauty | Home & Auto

“Barracetamol’s Family Reunion“
A cartoon character created, brought to life, placed, photographed and posted online by Elaine King, Nancy Scotford, Rosie Cotgreave, Katie Lewis, Jack Ledger, Alice Wakeley, Olivia Rogers, Dennis Yeung, Isabelle Baker and Hannah Willard.
Original interview with Barracetamol below. Family reunion photos available on Flickr here. Barracetamol’s twitter feed here. Download Barracetamol’s Family Reunion Action Pack here to print and place your own Barracetamol.

In 2012, students start the ‘Geographies of Material Culture’ by researching different examples of trade justice activism to add to the followthethings.com website (not all of them made it). Next, students who have researched different examples come together to create their own original examples of trade justice activism. They pick up some important ideas from their own research and what has already been published here on followthethings.com. They know the importance of taking commodities to pieces by looking through their ingredients and searching each one for mining, factory, farm and other human stories from their origins. They know the importance for filmmakers and activists of finding or creating a charismatic character for their audience members to relate to and empathise with. They’re familiar with literature arguing – and examples showing – that commodities have their own agentic power, can teach us things, and can be imagined coming alive and teaching us a few things. One group of students chooses something they all carry around with them: paracetamol. They look through its list of ingredients on the box. And look them up online. They find stories about talc and its miners and magnesium stearate and its connection to palm oil workers. These ingredients aren’t even in the pills, but they do help to make them. They use news stories to follow these two ingredients to their possible origins, and then turn around and look back towards their consumption. Yes, these workers and these ingredients help to make the paracetamol they carry around with them. But they start looking at the ingredients in other products, and find that talc and/or magnesium stearate are loads of other commodities too: toothpaste, paint, bronzer, beer and more. The task of the paracetamol cartoon character that they create – Barracetamol – is to go shopping with them, to find his missing relations, and to have his photo taken with related commodities with a little caption to post on his socials. He’s trying to tap into the vibe of those tear-jerking family reunion shows on TV. A familiar genre. The group’s creative process seems silly. The students enjoy it. They find it funny a lot of the time. But there’s a serious message about commodity-following behind this. At a teardown-level, countless commodities have the same ingredients sourced from the same places, mined and made by the same people. So a simple ‘this comes from there and therefore I should or should not buy it’ narrative obscures the complex interconnectedness of things in the global economy. Not everything is made for its final consumer. Barracetamol tries to convey a more complex story in a relatable way. Group member Nancy imagines that these moving reunions have made Barracetamol a minor celebrity. So he’s profiled in a magazine. Below you can read the interview.

Page reference: Elaine King, Nancy Scotford, Rosie Cotgreave, Katie Lewis, Jack Ledger, Alice Wakeley, Olivia Rogers, Dennis Yeung, Isabelle Baker & Hannah Willard (2012) Barracetamol’s Family Reunion. followthethings.com/barracetamols-family-reunion.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 27 minutes.

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

Cyborg Information Leaflet: Thyroxine 50 Microgram Tablets

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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 December 6, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Mirror

followthethings.com
Health & Beauty | Home & Auto

CHOOSE THE RIGHT THING

TAKE IT TO PIECES

FIND LOST RELATIONS

EMBODY EXPLOITATION

BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER

REDESIGN THE COMMODITY

INCLUDE HAUNTING & HORROR

MAKE IT META

MAKE IT SNAPPY

“Mirror“
Undergraduate coursework written by Lucinda Lawrence.

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 the properties they give to that commodity and your experience of ‘consuming it’. And write a 500 word first person account that connects your lives. One student – Lucinda Lawrence – creates the most ‘meta’ example we have ever seen. It’s about a mirror that she bought in a market. It’s about the science and ingredients of mirrors. It’s about the people who mine its ingredients. Like tin. It’s about who you see when you look in the mirror, who helps you to be you. And – aaaand – she submits two things. A piece of paper with some typed writing on it. And a mirror. The writing has been reversed, so it can only be read in the mirror. And the mirror has a message written in red lipstick on its surface. ”If you fall, no one’s gonna carry you out (Rubin Age 13)’ (Cook 2007, p,2).’ It’s a fantastic piece of work. But you’ll need a mirror to read it. It’s worth the effort! When we showed this at an academic conference, one member of the audience called it ‘conceptual art’.

[If you want more ‘who I see in the mirror’ trade justice activism, see our page on a short film called Handprint here]

Page reference: Lucinda Lawrence (2009) Mirror. followthethings.com/mirror.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes.

Posted on November 10, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Chewing Gum

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Grocery

INGREDIENTS SOURCED WORLDWIDE

CHOOSE THE RIGHT THING

TAKE IT TO PIECES

JOIN THE DOTS

MAKE THE HIDDEN VISIBLE

MAKE IT A MYSTERY

JUXTAPOSE EXTREMES

PLACE THINGS CAREFULLY

EMBODY EXPLOITATION

MAKE IT SNAPPY

MAKE IT META

“Chewing Gum“
Undergraduate coursework written by Lucy Mayblin, published in the Teaching Geography journal.
Full text below.

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, their lecturer (now 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 the properties they give to that commodity and your experience of ‘consuming it’. And write a 500 word first person account that connects your lives. One student – Lucy Mayblin – ends up writing about being an accidental consumer. She’s walking to class. She steps in chewing gum recently spat from someone else’s mouth. It’s stuck to her shoe. But what exactly is stuck to her shoe, and why? She buys some gum and inspects the ingredient list. She searches the internet to find out more. What she finds out is shocking. She had trodden in the ‘war on terror’?! But is it true? To add to the stickiness of her work, she prints it out, rolls it into a tube, puts it into a shoe, and hands it in with some fresh gum on the sole. It sticks to the hand-in desk.

Page reference: Lucy Mayblin (2004) Chewing Gum. followthethings.com/chewing-gum.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 6 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 November 4, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Big Boys Gone Bananas!*

followthethings.com
Grocery

SHOW CAPITALIST EVILS

PLACE THINGS CAREFULLY

CULTIVATE RELATIONSHIPS

INVOLVE CONSUMERS

BRING MANAGERS INTO VIEW

INCLUDE A BOYCOTT

INCLUDE EMOTION

ENCOURAGE EMPATHY

MAKE THE HIDDEN VISIBLE

“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

Manufactured Landscapes

followthethings.com
Home & Auto

SMART CIRCUIT BREAKERS

MUTLIPLE OTHER COMMODITIES

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

“Manufactured Landscapes“
A documentary film directed by Jennifer Baichwal, starring photographer Edward Burtynsky, for Zeitgeist Films.
Trailer embedded above. Search online for streaming availability here.

Filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal follows industrial landscape photographer Edward Burtynsky as he visits factories, dumping and recycling sites in China and Bangladesh. His photos are stunning, beautiful, mesmerising and disturbing. Her film picks out the details and follows them, ‘unfreezing’ his photos in time. On the one hand, it’s a portrait of the artist at work. But, on the other, some say it’s a critique of the way that his work is more interested in the aesthetics than the politics and ethics of global capitalism. As he’s high above or far away trying to get a stunning visual composition framed and lit just right, she documents lives and livelihoods up close. People watching the film say that it transforms the cinema into an art gallery, as his photos linger long on the screen. Many remark on the ‘beauty’ of his work. It’s sublime. But is Baichwal’s film complicating these aesthetics with ethics? Or does his interest in capitalist industrialisation’s huge scale, order, patterns and visual contrasts ,and his eye for pollution, invite the viewer to see these ethics at play?

Page reference: Lucy Bannister, Harriet Beattie, Katy Charlton, Lawrence Cook, Daisy Livingston, Romain Tijou & Alex Tucker (2011) Manufactured Landscapes. followthethings.com/manufactured-landscapes,shtml (last accessed <insert dae here>)

Estimated reading time: 36 minutes.