March 22 2019 - Man installs adblocker on Melbourne Central Station. [video]
Protest all you want, and for whatever cause you want, but as soon as you start affecting public transport because of it I lose all interest in anything you have to do or say.
protests must be disruptive to a certain level to be effective. you can’t protest increasing video advertisement on a vital part of people’s everyday life without destroying some screens with paint. how would he have protested the advertisements without affecting public transport? he’s not physically stopping trains, he’s not violent.
Increasing video advertising means absolutely jack shit to somebody living paycheck to paycheck.
Missing out on three to four hours work because somebody wants to protest against increasing video advertising by delaying trains because of the sudden need of a cleaning crew ABSOLUTELY means something to people living paycheck to paycheck.
Affecting public transport for the sake of your personal views is selfish, and trying to attain the general public’s support by inconveniencing the general public is the most arse-backwards way of protesting on the planet.
the incident didn’t cause any delays, which is to be expected. do they close down the subway stations every time they find graffiti on the walls? no, they wait until maintenance time, which is regularly scheduled during nighttime–either every night, or a couple of times a week.
to force the low and working class to be exposed to far more advertisement than the upper class (in all senses: they afford premium tv channels without ads, they don’t take the subway, etc etc) is something that we in the low and working class should stand against. it hurts us, it pressures us to spend money we already don’t have, and ads are used as a tool to sell a false idea of what our lives should or could look like if we just worked under capitalism just a little bit harder. ads are not the friend of those who rely on public transport.
inconvenience is an age old tactics in protesting. that’s why strikes use picket lines (and that’s also why you shouldn’t cross them!): they inconvenience the company or organisation that the workers are protesting against. that’s why we hold marches, to inconvenience the public to force them to listen to our demonstrations. that’s how protesting operates and works.
i want to make it clear that i’m not in any way trying to say that you are authoritarian (or belong to the right), but non-disruptive protests and demonstrations are heavily favoured by the conservative far right and those of authoritative power (companies, universities, and so on). they favour it specifically because they know non-disruptive demonstrations are ineffective. if your ideal protest is non-disruptive, your ideal protest is also ineffective.
I don’t think The Good Place gets enough credit for the diversity of its cast. The main romantic lead is a black man from Senegal who is allowed to be as nerdy as he wants. In fact, his nerdiness is the saving grace of the main character. The character that is often considered to be the pinnacle of beauty on the show is a woman of Indian descent who is not super light skinned. Another character is a Filipino man who, while incredibly stupid, can be incredibly perceptive and offers loving emotional advice and is described as incredibly sexually-desirable. The all-knowing judge on the show, considered to be the most powerful character as of the season three finale, is a black woman. The main character is canonically sexually attracted to both men and women and (while it hasn’t been canonically confirmed yet) is probably at the very least bisexual, if not pansexual. She also regularly talks about how she loved to sleep around and is never slut-shamed for either her sexuality or her fondness for sex. And that’s just in the core cast. There’s also a black female neuroscientist who gets several episode long arcs in both season 3 and (about to be) season 4. Not to mention the supporting cast and guest characters feature several people of color, while the main villains are mostly old, white men.
And all of these characters are actual characters! Even the small parts where a side character may only be in an episode or two results in really developed and fleshed out characterizations. Also, the characterizations don’t fall into the trap of stereotypes to make them more likeable!!
But while all of this diversity is amazing, the show also manages to make it feel organic. There’s no tokenism or show-boating. It’s never a “look, the main love interest is a black man!!!!! We’re so woke!!!!!!!”. It’s genuine diversity built from a place of love and understanding and idk, I just think that the show deserves a lot of credit for taking such an amazing concept and using it to build such a diverse world with such in depth characters. It’s a nice change.
Not to mention it’s a philosophical masterpiece that’s obviously written by philosophy and ethics enthusiasts, and has some deep philosophy jokes that you’ll only get after studying philosophy… which you’ll probably want to do after watching The Good Place.
And all of this stuff is mainly discussed by the aforementioned POC in the show.
There’s a female lead, sure, but instead of being the often annoying “white savior” the show flips that trope around (or throws it out I can’t decide which is more apt) and makes her into the audience surrogate. She’s the “white student” if you will, who is learning how to be a better person from a black man.
Go watch The Good Place dammit. It’s great, AND it’s a philosophical masterpiece.
There are some very self-aware moments about their casting policies, but instead of being preachy, they’re hilarious. Like this one:
I am Silver Tongue, I am an artist. I have many characters and you can check out my art in the art tag. I occasionally practice witchcraft though I don't do anything too complicated. I am girl 2 and don't know what else to put here.
