What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground.
Keep taping, right “citizen journalists?” Not sure if this a rant against Twitter or the way people use social networks to further an agenda. Hmmm. Okay, latter! The catalyst for it was the recent presidential election in Iran and an attempt I saw to equate slain protestor Neda with “The Movement™ (as I’m now calling it).
A few might question the authenticity of the clip, but it’s more than that. The bigger irony here is equating The Movement™ with the iconic look of a president who instead wants to stay out of the election process in Iran.
What are we doing here, really.
Apparently Twitter now does everything from breaking news to washing your dog to exploiting tragic events for the good of... (say it with me) The Movement.™ This is achieved by goading you into swapping out an avatar “for real change you can believe in.”
Look, I’m not against lending voice or speaking for those whose government won’t allow it, but at the risk of pinning the metaphor meter, the constant attempts to recreate the next Tiananmen Square as this generation’s Vietnam are getting old. If Gen Whine were to have a t-shirt as non-descript as their causes, it would simply be I Was There.*
Wherever “there” is that week of course.
(That claim noticeably belonging to anyone who’d served in Vietnam, the idea being that unless you participated in said event, how could you possibly understand what they went through. That vibe having since been co-opted for any number of causes.)
Maybe that’s what things like green avatars do in this age: Let you wave freedom flags from behind the safety of a 15” screen. You’re there–in spirit.
Most people forget or seem to ignore two things however.
First, regimes who do unspeakable things to their citizens learned long ago to ignore outside influences. Think Kim Jong Il gives a shit about the UN, let alone Twitter? Let the person who can make more of a difference be aware.
Direct those tweets at president Obama kids. His lips may say no but his polling numbers say maybe. Besides, you’d have a better shot with him than trying to convince Iranian hardliners with anything but overwhelming force. Good luck with a few rocks.
Secondly, people are watching this Faces of Death clip out of a morbid sense of curiosity as much as having genuine political motivations. With every click viewers inadvertently help create Martyr 2.0. No, no, really, you should feel proud, not disgusted!
Thing is, the truly iconic moments we remember seeing surrounding a violent event almost always tend to depict the moment after, not during. What has more power? I’m voting less is more. Contrast a moment you don’t usually see with the one that makes headlines, like images of the real Tiananmen Square.
A student stopping a tank is a far more romantic notion than a pile of bodies, innit. What if the tank hit him though. Does the moment lose its effect? Does it become less important? Does seeing one student stand there diminish the impact of knowing how many others died? Are we that hard up for iconic moments now that we take whatever we can get our hands and cell phones on?
(To be clear, I’m talking about showing someone’s last moments and subsequent death.** That’s something you don’t need to see to impart some deeper meaning on the events of the day, as if that one incident will be the PR flashpoint the protests needed.)
Unfortunately, this is the downside of social networks as unfiltered B-roll. Something traditional journalism and newspapers can still claim the higher ground over: Knowing when and what to edit.
The iconic image up top is Mary Ann Vecchio after seeing the body of a dead student. It wasn’t until later after the event that CSN&Y allowed Kent State to live on forever in song. The Iranian elections? They have Twitter and YouTube.
At least until next week when Darfur starts acting up again and everything else takes a back seat.
*Comes in all sizes; never goes out of style either because there’s always another cause around the corner to wear or regift for that special protester in your life.
**Yes, 9/11 imagery shown ad nauseum already considered. Next.
Tags: Iran elections, Neda
No comments:
Post a Comment