During a moment when the facade of social media seems to be cracking, it’s easy to look to Instagram stars and wonder what’s real and what’s fake. Last month, Essena O’Neill, the Australian teenager who racked up more than half a million Instagram followers, quit Instagram after claiming that social media is “not real life.”
A call for users to post photos with officers and the hashtag #myNYPD is met with images of police brutality after Occupy Wall Street mocks the request.
This satirical website ridicules hipster racism and black tokenism, using two fictional white characters - Sally and Johnny - who have many black friends. The webpage is fairly simple and features fictional testimonies by black people celebrating the stereotypes and innocuous, but prejudiced behavior of Sally and Johnny. There is also a section of submitted testimonies and hate mail/fanmail.
From Time Magazine:
It's not a dress—it's a cape
We’ve all seen the woman in the triangle dress that marks women’s bathrooms. But what if that triangle silhouette isn’t really a dress?
Actor and comedian Bill Cosby is a household name to the American public. But in the last year alone, Cosby's name has been tarnished by decades of hidden scandal. Allegations against Cosby as a sexual predator have recently gained new media traction. Much of this attention was spurred over Twitter thanks to a Cosby "meme generator". The generator allowed for visual representation of past predatory allegations against Mr. Cosby.
A new, three-minute ad by Coca-Cola, "Small World Machines," starts with a relatively straightforward premise: India and Pakistan do not get along so well. It ends with the promise of peace: "Togetherness, humanity, this is what we all want, more and more exchange," a woman, either Indian or Pakistani, narrates as the music swells. Sounds great. How do we get there? By buying Coke, of course.
The Spanish 15M/Indignados movement represents a citizen break-up with the current political system while proposing an alternative one, changing the prevailing participation patterns while transforming the cultural, social and political structures in the country.
Nobody expected the Spanish r-Evolution and there it goes; still advancing and strong.
"Everyday Iran”, inspired by “Everyday Africa”, is the most widespread mobile photography project based on social networks in Iran which started since early in 2014.
We in Everyday Iran ask the whole people who live and work in Iran to send us their photos of daily life in the country with #everydayiran. Those photos which are selected by 5 Iranian curators are reposted on our social media pages.
Pursuing the possibility of emancipatory use of technology, Paglen, together with Jacob Appelbaum, developed Autonomy Cube (2014). Autonomy Cube is a sculpture and internet router designed to be housed in civic spaces. The sculpture is meant to be both “seen” and “used.” Formally it references Hans Haacke's 'Condensation Cube' (1963-65).
On April 15 in northern Nigeria, 200 school girls aged 15-18 were kidnapped by an extremist Muslim group called Boko Haram, whose name in the Hausa language means “Western education is a sin.” In hopes of viral pressure on Nigerian authorities to try to recover the girls, campaigns have started on the White House website, on Change.org and on Facebook to demand: “Bring Back Our Girls.” The campaigns quickly gained global attention, with Michelle Obama,
Started by UK resident Laura Bates, The Everyday Sexism project is an open forum for women to record their stories of experienced sexism. The project was started as a means to show that gender inequality and sexism pervade contemporary society.
Mind Over Media is a crowdsourced educational platform that contains diverse examples of contemporary propaganda on a wide range of social, political, economic and environmental topics.
On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the communist takeover of China, Tibet activists projected messages of support for human rights and freedom from inside and outside of the Empire State Building, countering China’s public relations stunt to bathe the building in red and yellow light. “NY [Hearts] Human Rights” was projected from inside the ESB onto a nearby building.
Courage Scores grade California state legislators on their political courage, revealing how well they stand up for their constituents over corporations or interest groups that exploit Californians, particularly the poor, disadvantaged, or communities of color.
The large crowds and brightly coloured placards of the school climate strikes became some of the defining images of 2019.
“There would be lots of chanting and the energy was always amazing,” says Dominique Palmer, a 20-year-old climate activist from London who has been involved with the strikes for more than a year. “Being there with everyone in that moment is truly an electrifying feeling. It’s very different now.”
Activists have started an online campaign to pressure US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to lift sanctions on Iran to help it contain the spread of coronavirus.
Coronavirus: Are US sanctions hurting Iran's response to the pandemic?
With more than 48,000 panels and 94,000 names, the AIDS quilt is a constantly growing testament to the deadly toll the disease has taken on the world. At roughly 1.3 million square feet, it is so large that it can’t be displayed in its entirety in one place. Parts of it are currently on display at the National Mall, with volunteers constantly switching sections in and out.
“Undanced Dances Through Prison Walls During a Pandemic” features six dances written inside a prison, a 35-minute dance film, and 11 artists (seven choreographic interpreters and four formerly incarcerated narrators) conversing on dancing in carceral spaces.
Food delivery riders are taking industrial action in China over low pay and the recent detention of an unofficial labor leader. The strike comes after Xiong Yan, who headed an unofficial union formed by workers for the food delivery app Ele.me and other services, was detained in Beijing last month. His whereabouts are still unknown.
A photo project/online feed to increase visibility of sex workers and increase the sex workers’ sense of community of voice, in response to a spate of violence against the community in Ireland. The project led to a piece in The National, and increased area interest and conversation about violence against sex workers.
Maryland Hall, in partnership with the Banneker Douglass Museum and Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture, invited Maryland-based Black artists, whose work encapsulates activism and social justice and using the creative process to educate their audiences about diversity, equity and inclusion to send proposals to take one of six 5 ft.