Hijacking Bush to the West

I'm amazed that Dan Bergeron has photos and descriptions all of his hijackings archived on his company web page, along with his nam and phone number. He also talked to the media candidly, and provided his name. If he wants to spark controversy and get his name out there, he's succeeding, but is he also willing to deal with the potential criminal charges he may face?

I enjoy the vigilante/public art movement to an extent, but this is starting to look more like an attempt at a publicity stunt than art, and its meaning is beginning to get lost.

yes, yes we are. People can be way too oversensitive sometimes.

Uhh...all right, whatever. The stuff on blogTO is normally good, but this is just really, really lame.

Fauxreel's a Torontoist contributor, he's a very cool guy, but that's ok that you didn't mention that either. And this is last week's news, but that's ok, too. I guess.

Nobody I've talked to about this thought that either billboard was racist. When I was taking photos of it at night, an Arab-looking guy looked at what I was shooting and laughed. Plenty of people chuckled as they walked by. My friends (some of them are white, some of them aren't! crazy!) are either indifferent or think it's funny.

I guess, unlike you, they all got it.

I'm gonna step out from my Torontoist brethren, and say this is actually a perfectly good story and raises some valid points. And I have even more to add.
Usually, as an artist, I don't mind a little culture jamming every now and then, but this whole thing has seemed to me very uninspired, and possibly lazy in it's thinking (although I'd imagine it took a lot of work to put together, physically).
1. Why would you attack a tiny company no-one's ever heard of? Traditionally targets are very carefully chosen corporate conglomerates with dirty records. People who deserve to, and can afford to get hit.
2. Why would you politically alter a message that's already very politically charged? The billboard itself raised questions, and got people to question the world around them, and maybe giggle a little bit. What's the point of jumping on that bandwagon? It does seem more of a publicity stunt than a serious attempt to raise awareness about something or other.
5. He's not our president. We can laugh about him being a dumb, ugly American, but that's about it. We do, however, have a Prime Minister with some Bushian leanings. Why not make a statement about something we can actually change, instead of some trendy politics we (as Canadians) don't really have anything to do with?
6. Just because you don't 'think' it's racist, doesn't mean some people won't be offended any-ways, and that their opinions aren't valid.
7. I didn't think it was funny. I thought it was obvious and dumb.
8. Traditionally, culture Jammers do not put their name on things because they would be sued and/or arrested pretty quickly. Fauxreal is lucky this company is to tiny to bother. Which raises an interesting question. When a (internet) famous artist attacks an ad by a company that's tinier that his reputation, is social justice still on his side, simply because he's attacking capitalism in some abstract way?

"Arab-looking guy" ?

David, I think Jenny "got it". The point she illustrates here is that others may not, however. And citing the examples of the few people (of diverse ethnicity, apparently) that you saw being either indifferent or ammused is hardly representative or overall opinion.

Also, what does any of this have to do with Torontoist? I can see why you might take this personally and feel compelled to step in with support for one of your writers, but how is fauxreel's affiliation with your site relevent?

Yes Ryan, Arab-looking. Just like how I'm jewish-looking, or white-looking, or English-looking, or Russian-looking, or whatever. I didn't have time to check his wallet or ask his family history.

And jerrold, to me it'd be like us writing about something you've done in a negative way, but neglecting to mention that you're a contributor to a fellow site. This is just me talking here, but I find that kind of fishy. With this article, you get to trash Torontoist a bit, but not even give us credit for the trashing.

Also, "citing the examples of the few people...that you saw being either indifferent or ammused is hardly representative or overall opinion."
Fair enough, but didn't Jenny do the exact same thing, except she cited a few people who were kinda pissed off?

I'm gonna back out of this thread now, since I know that all I'll end up doing is defending the points I've already made. I stand by what I said.

It looks as though representatives for anyone who might conceivably have been upset by the billboard stunt (except Kanye and "W", both notoriously difficult to reach), have now weighed in, and reactions have ranged from "why stir the? pot" to "mildly concerned".

Slow news day or what?

Leave this type of discussion to the Spacing folks. You do good at most things, but not city reporting. Though, Jenny did cover some good angles, but it is making a story out of nothing.

Don't worry everyone. I just ran into BlogTO & Torontoists bedroom and flipped the light switch on and off repeatedly, and they calmed down.

the biggest problem ? cnn didn't pick this up and did a story on it .
the boards are gone and nobody cares anymore.

David, if you did check his wallet and it turned out that he wasn't Arab, then his opinion would be irrelevent to the point you were trying to make. You may be "jewish-looking, or white-looking, or English-looking, or Russian-looking, or whatever" but you should try being journalist-looking and credible-looking.

david, there are 22,000 arabs in toronto. so the likelyhood that your arab-looking witness was in fact arab is about 1:200.

but point taken, there are no racial undertones here. it's obvious that a-rab etc. is part of a satire. and the national post, the globe, torontoist and previous posts on blog to have already done this to death. and, of all the ink spilled, this is the most boring account.

With this article, you get to trash Torontoist a bit, but not even give us credit for the trashing.



I'm a bit mystified by how you trash an organization by not mentioning it or how exactly one gets "credit for [a] trashing". If anyone around here is trashing Torontoist, I think it's a certain editor by way of his smug incoherent high-school-style ramblings.



PS. I do not contribute to either blogTO or Torontoist. If you wish to criticize what I've said here, be sure to mention this or you will be trashing the rest of the world and yet not giving them credit for the trashing. (How awful.) You also must mention that I'm a "very cool guy". If you fail to do so, you will never have any friends who are not white. (crazy!)

Metafilter discussed this recently. Their consensus? The original billboard was more clever than the remix.

Simply Audiobooks didnt fight back because they are 'tiny'
im sure they didnt make a stink about it
because the public did it for them!
and think about it
the more free publicity we spread, the better for them
as this isnt attacking their company at all.

I saw one of the "Kanye yous'my nigga" billboards in Toronto Canada and my little sister got extremely offended and actually called the mayor forcing it to be torn down.