White Rabbit: Influencer

White Rabbit is becoming a social media influencer.

A month or two ago she secured several Thai government advertizing contracts as a mascot.

The Japanese government also gave White Rabbit a contract to promote the “My Number” campaign (linking people’s names to numbers so they can be digitally tracked).

Is White Rabbit drifting into an ethical disconnect? 

WHITE RABBIT, WHITE RABBIT, WHITE RABBIT…

Luck for people, or luck for the government?

Jawline: Pressure to perform

On becoming almost famous...

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Noah: I saw a film the other day about a YouTuber. A young male teenager Austyn Tester. He wanted to be famous, so he started a YouTube channel broadcasting messages of positivity. “You gotta have a dream, you gotta chase it, don’t let anyone’s opinions affect you...”

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Leo: He became famous?

She's a fan...

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Noah: Briefly. He created a fanbase of teenage girls.

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Leo: Why did he want to be famous?

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Noah: Didn’t seem to want to be famous for something, just famous. “It’s 10:06 PM, I’m not famous right now, but I’ll be famous soon.”

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Leo: Did it happen?

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Noah: He couldn’t keep up with the constant demands of publicity. Burned out and returned to school in Tennessee.

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Voice-over

The film, Jawline, won the Breakthrough Filmmaker Award at Sundance. The director, Liza Mandelup, ran a Q&A at the recent New Zealand film festival. Brilliant direction, articulate interview. A look at the precarious YouTube world of people who aim at being famous for being famous. She captured the angst of some YouTubers having to be creative every day. To say something meaningful to connect with their fans. To say things that make their fans feel someone cares about them swimming in their schools of anonymity. Make them feel special. Even if the constant stream of encouraging words sounds like empty prattling to other generations. The documentary film had depth; as Austyn seemed to be a pawn in the game, the young media entrepreneur Michael Weist came across as savvy if somewhat scheming.

Michael: "Austyn has 22,300 followers, hmm, I wouldn’t touch him...Because when they’re 30, and they’re not cute, it’s game over, there’s no longevity behind it."

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Notre Dame comparisons

An 800-year-old icon goes up in smoke...

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Louise: Terrible.

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Pierre: Striking at a nation’s cultural core. Like 9/11.

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BBC: Photo: Brookes Windsor

Louise: A bit different...

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Pierre: True. Not a good comparison. In New York, the building was less than 50 years old and 3,000 people died.

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Louise: And Notre Dame was 700 years old but nobody died.

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Eisenstadt: VJ Day

Pierre: Something else though. This photo of a man swinging his daughter just before the fire started. It went viral in a search for who they were. Like the sailor kissing the nurse on VJ Day 1945.

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Louise: A reversal of sorts. The 1945 photo was an expression of jubilancy after 5 years of the darkness of war. The 2019 photo was expression of joy before the fire destroyed an 800-year-old icon of France.

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Voice-over

Both photos became memes of a search for who the characters were. In the Life photo Alfred Eisenstadt’s photo was a mainstream-media transmitted top-down process. In the amateur picture posted on social media, the process became bottom up. Then it became top down as the BBC picked up the story.

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Atrocities in Norway and now New Zealand

After the shooting in the mosque…

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Nils: What with the mosque massacre downunder by a man gone mad on social media, rise of racism and the ultra-right. Like that Norwegian.

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Sven: Yes, he cited the Norwegian… wasn’t he declared insane?

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Nils: Forensic psychiatrists’ first assessment of the Norwegian was insanity. Then they had another examination and concluded he wasn’t.

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Sven: I guess they get treated more leniently if they are insane. Could get out earlier and be a danger to terrorize society again.

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Nils: Terrorism? Or madness? The random violence of an insane man?

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Sven: Insanity can be contagious. There were copycats of the Norwegian. A Czech, then a Pole. Now this.

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Nils: It’s a mad world. And such events fire up the conspiracy theorists. Breivik acted with accomplices? No evidence turned up. The terrorist had accomplices? No evidence. Maybe the insane find it hard to get along with each other.

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Voice-over

Pixellate the unspeakable

We share the world with increasingly more people. Cultures collide. Characters clash. Maybe life used to be used to be simpler. People got along. Or if they didn’t they had an argument and looked a bit sheepish about it next day. Now some people who cannot be famous for good deeds, resort to using social media to make their mark through evil. Pixellate their face and don’t use their name.

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