Irony is best served cold...
Saturday, November 24, 2007
...or was that revenge?
I think it's great when kids get involved in active citizenry, but some actions are unintentionally sardonic.
It's almost X-mas and the malls are busy. I just came from buying a present for a party I have tonight and saw around 10 kids dressed as zombies (white makeup), walking around the mall with "consumers" signs plastered on their bodies. It's a form of protest directed towards our wasteful generation that blindly buys anything that is advertised on TV. The funny part, I thought, is that these suburbanite, middle-class kids were zoombying it up with designer clothes and shoes. The point got muddle in the midst of All-Star and Nike shoes, Gap sweaters, and Levi's jeans.
I did wonder, when they go back home, if they they'll drink Coke to quench their thirst, and watch the news on the new HDTV 52" unit (plasma or LCD) their parents bought this year? (Chances are good.)
Like I said, it's good kids get involved. In high-school I thought the GAP was evil for using cheap labour in third world countries. It did eventually click that by not buying their products my life didn't change in one bit but it was more of personal choice. Now, ethical cheap labour is just part of a better balance sheet at the end of the year. (Sarcastically, I pump my fist to my capitalistic education.)
I do hope the actual message is not lost on the kid-zombies, and don't think it's a just a cool prank to have the mall security running around them while obediently protesting something adults told them to protest. I mean, it's hard to come by original dissent now a days. It has to come in the form of shrink-wrapped
glossy magazines sold at the local bookstore, with Starbucks coffee brewing in the background. But maybe that's the intention: work the system
from within.
For me, I have I to go now: I have to fill-up my 42 gallon gasoline guzzler to go eat,
drink, and be merry.
To my defense on consuming things, I have no cable so I'm not sure what's in or out. Against me, though, is the fact I do have a high-speed internet connection. But I think it's better to corrupt my young mind with pull technology rather than push technology: I control the buttons.
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