So, I went out on my first Discordian mission today; I got to school EARLY (Read, two hours or so before it actually started), and posted up a bunch of one-sentence Memebombs in poster/flier all around school. Give or take a couple hundred. I was very proud of myself, to say the least, especially that I managed to do the entire thing covertly!
So, the day goes on. People start talking about the posters. I smile inwardly. Lots of people are saying bad things about them, but that's to be expected, amirite?
And then I get word that the order has been sent from the administration to every faculty member to take down any of my posters they see. I get to view not only faculty but a number of students joining in the ripping down of my posters.
At lunch time, not a single one of my posters (Besides the one posted in the most inconspicuous areas, the ones nobody goes into) is left on a wall. Needless to say, my spirit is utterly crushed. Nobody really speaks out against it, either. Sure, somebody's (While they didn't know who's, still) First Amendment rights were just raped right in front of their eyes. But that's okay. The Machine (TM) ordered it, so it must be morally correct, right?
Adding insult to... Well... Insult is that in sixth period, at the end of the day, they decided to send an announcement over the intercom:
"Vandalism is NOT tolerated at (Insert school name here). Any students caught vandalizing school property will be punished severely." (It's paraphrased, but you get the point.)
So, I'm sitting here now in a melancholic state, to say the least. I'm completely convinced that nothing I can do in terms of GASMs will ever get anywhere, after today. So, I wanted to ask you guys, who are infinitely more experienced than Mr. Noob here.
Does this usually happen? Do there have to be infinite failures like this before a success finally comes along? Should I just keep trying, no matter how much Authority smacks me down? Or should I give up while the giving's good? I mean, I know I probably shouldn't be asking that, but I just don't even know after today.
Thanks. -Jack
I'd say keep trying. If meme bombs don't work, then try a different method. The fact is, the majority of people are too stuck in their mindframe to accept any challenges. The best you can hope for is to: A. slowly change things (which will take years if it even happens) or B. sway a couple minds from the quagmire. But don't give up. That's what the fuckers want you to do.
Sometimes I would say the failure IS the success - how were you expecting people to react?
What meme bombs did you use?
TOTAL SUCCESS
-that reaction en mass is priceless. Victory campaign my good sir, absolute victory. However, you haven't told us about the meme/ flyer content. For full :ninja: effect, do not repeat at same location.
HAVE YOURSELF
a good wank and enjoy a gasm yerself.
Quote from: JackALope2323 on March 09, 2010, 03:39:38 AM
So, I went out on my first Discordian mission today; I got to school EARLY (Read, two hours or so before it actually started), and posted up a bunch of one-sentence Memebombs in poster/flier all around school. Give or take a couple hundred. I was very proud of myself, to say the least, especially that I managed to do the entire thing covertly!
So, the day goes on. People start talking about the posters. I smile inwardly. Lots of people are saying bad things about them, but that's to be expected, amirite?
And then I get word that the order has been sent from the administration to every faculty member to take down any of my posters they see. I get to view not only faculty but a number of students joining in the ripping down of my posters.
At lunch time, not a single one of my posters (Besides the one posted in the most inconspicuous areas, the ones nobody goes into) is left on a wall. Needless to say, my spirit is utterly crushed. Nobody really speaks out against it, either. Sure, somebody's (While they didn't know who's, still) First Amendment rights were just raped right in front of their eyes. But that's okay. The Machine (TM) ordered it, so it must be morally correct, right?
Adding insult to... Well... Insult is that in sixth period, at the end of the day, they decided to send an announcement over the intercom:
"Vandalism is NOT tolerated at (Insert school name here). Any students caught vandalizing school property will be punished severely." (It's paraphrased, but you get the point.)
So, I'm sitting here now in a melancholic state, to say the least. I'm completely convinced that nothing I can do in terms of GASMs will ever get anywhere, after today. So, I wanted to ask you guys, who are infinitely more experienced than Mr. Noob here.
Does this usually happen? Do there have to be infinite failures like this before a success finally comes along? Should I just keep trying, no matter how much Authority smacks me down? Or should I give up while the giving's good? I mean, I know I probably shouldn't be asking that, but I just don't even know after today.
Thanks. -Jack
This
will always happen.
You
are vandalising school property.
The Management
will take down your messages.
"A number of students" are going to assist The Management in removing your messages.
Today was not a failure, because your messages were seen.
What would you call a success? Did you think The Management would welcome your messages? Praise you for your vandalism?
It's hard to tell whether you have succeeded or not, but that people were
talking about the posters is positive. The message has been received. It is up to the receivers to process the information, and not everyone is going to react to it positively. In fact, it's likely that many will not even think about it. It's a success if you reach
somebody.This is why somewhere in the meme-bomb database is the sentence "Congratulations: You have seen this message before the agents of oppression managed to remove it."
Understand that they will view you as a vandal, otherwise you won't be prepared for the police chasing you.
GODSPEED, SOLDIER.
Find a year book and go to the senior class portraits. Select the 23rd student and anonymously tell the administrators that he/she did it. If you play your cards right you might make that place fun. :lulz:
The Machine's ideological antibodies. You triggered them.
When poisoning a man, consider that a higher dose will often lead to a stronger bodily response. Lower doses over an extended period are vastly more effective. However, toxicity (as this perfectly legal and harmless metaphor goes) is dependent on there being a large enough dose to incite the symptom, but lethality depends upon a low enough dose to avoid triggering antibodies and cleansing responses.
tl;dr Keep at it, don't get caught, and pace yourself. Screwing with the Machine is a marathon, not a sprint.
What they said. Well done, and congrats on pulling it off.
Things to consider:
1) "Congratulations: You have seen this message before the agents of oppression managed to remove it." <- use it subtly. If you can manage a small posting in a faculty only area, so much the better.
2) Count this as a win, and then ALTER YOUR STRATEGY ACCORDINGLY. You pushed the machine, and it spat strife out back at you. Always know how to spin it right back at them.
@ Sigmatic: I suppose you're right. The best use of posters, I suppose, would be a few placed inconspicuously, rather than tons placed all over the place. I mean, I didn't draw attention to myself, but I drew attention to my actions. I understand that's what you're supposed to do, but I think I drew the wrong kind of attention. And far, far too much of it.
@ Everybody Else: I understand I had SOME kind of effect... I just thought that by the end of the day, I'd feel something in the air. Like something had CHANGED in my school. Like people had begun to think for themselves. It just wasn't there...
Anyways, in terms of the posters I used. I've gathered approximately seven hundred or so memebombs into a Works Processing Document, which I'll post later in this post. I printed out about the first two hundred, and posted them up all around my school. I tried to evenly distribute them, so that there wouldn't be too many in one spot, but they'd still be impossible to miss.
I plan to go to my local mall, downtown, and other heavily trafficked areas soon and start posting them around there. Maybe I can't get away with it at school, but by god I'll certainly try other places.
http://www.mediafire.com/?nmyvmemmga2
Hope you like my collection. =D
Quote from: JackALope2323 on March 09, 2010, 04:45:53 AM
@ Everybody Else: I understand I had SOME kind of effect... I just thought that by the end of the day, I'd feel something in the air. Like something had CHANGED in my school. Like people had begun to think for themselves. It just wasn't there...
It is
very unlikely that the response to your very first memetic assault will be "upon hearing this, the students were enlightened."
These things take time and dedication. You're not going to change the world in a single postering of your school.
Quote from: Sigmatic on March 09, 2010, 04:12:30 AM
Screwing with the Machine is a marathon, not a sprint.
Keep listening to the responses. Find which tactics are most effective. Understand your target audience and how to best speak to them.
YES
QUOTE: I plan to go to my local mall, downtown, and other heavily trafficked areas soon and start posting them around there. Maybe I can't get away with it at school, but by god I'll certainly try other places.
Lots of good advice here.
Try to think like a bad case of the flu. You want to hit as often as possible, causing as many problems as possible, each time with better ways to counter the best defenses.
Quote from: Sigmatic on March 09, 2010, 04:12:30 AM
The Machine's ideological antibodies. You triggered them.
When poisoning a man, consider that a higher dose will often lead to a stronger bodily response. Lower doses over an extended period are vastly more effective. However, toxicity (as this perfectly legal and harmless metaphor goes) is dependent on there being a large enough dose to incite the symptom, but lethality depends upon a low enough dose to avoid triggering antibodies and cleansing responses.
tl;dr Keep at it, don't get caught, and pace yourself. Screwing with the Machine is a marathon, not a sprint.
This.
Yeah, don't get disheartened! You've learned quite a few things about your network's immune-system.
1) Your posters are seen as "vandalism".
2) Vandalism is to be removed immediately.
So you've got a few options here.
--you can try tinkering with the perception of vandalism - for example, try putting up things which are hard to think of as vandalism, like fine art. Print out a bunch of recognizable paintings like the Mona Lisa or The Scream. These things are clearly not graffiti, they probably are under the "art" heading in most people's minds. If the "art" stays up, in a few weeks try posting "art" with meme bombs written it.
--you can try tinkering with your posters' presentation so that it doesn't appear like it's coming from outside the system. One good trick is to include a tiny image on each of your posters which looks like a rubber "APPROVED" stamp. Use a stamp font like Artiststamp (http://1001freefonts.com/Artistamp.php). "APPROVED by the Main Office, do not remove", or "APPROVED for posting by the Art Department" are great memes in of themselves.
--you can try to re-frame the conflict in a way which is favorable to you. People really love the rebellion meme, and they love it even more when their freedom of speech is being restricted. One way to do this is to start a poster campaign which highlights your posters as an expression of free speech. "This poster is an expression of my first amendment rights." is a good one. As they rip it down, the person will have to think about acting as a censor. I've had pretty good luck with hanging the the full text of the first amendment - that paragraph is the very piece of text which gives you the right to hang up that text! (debatable)
--Is there a way to tell the difference between 'official postings' and 'vandalism'? Try blurring the line between the two. You could hang up useful, official school announcements in the same font and layout as your posters. Or you could make your posters blend in with official school announcements. "Student Forum Meeting in the cafeteria on Wednesday. This week's topic: do students deserve the right to express themselves in a public school?" "This week's topic: What is the difference between free speech and vandalism?"
Those are great ideas, Cram.
I almost wish I was back in high school. This kind of stuff was exactly what I was into.
Once ain't gonna cut it.
Also, placement is everything.
also, take a look at your goals.
Do you think that a one liner can instigate enlightenment? If so, what does that enlightenment look like? Are there any times in your life that you heard a sentence which changed your perceptions or behavior?
You can't force people to drink the tea of enlightenment anyway. It's too hot to drink, and probably better used as a weapon. :wink:
Perhaps your best hope is to put feelers out there, signposts for other people like you to follow. When I am designing a prank, my target audience is generally a slightly younger version of myself. I think about what would have woken ME up, what would have changed MY behavior.
It's also a lot of fun to do battle versus the Machine. If you view your efforts as the first steps on a path to global enlightenment, you may be gazing too deeply into your navel. You're bound to be disappointed. But if you see yourself as one of the factors in the ongoing romance between order and disorder, it doesn't matter whether you "win" or "lose", it's largely about how much fun you have while you're doing it. Putting up all those posters did make you feel like a secret agent, didn't it? Well the truth is, there IS a giant conspiracy and it starts with YOU.
Not sure what you wanted to accomplish but.....
People read what you put up.
You pissed off the local authority.
To me, it seems it was a positive postering!
KEEP IT GOING!
There's no such thing as bad press!
Incidentally, which posters are you using? If you are making your own, feel free to share. I can always use new material when OMFing the campus.
@ Dimo: My posters: http://www.mediafire.com/?nmyvmemmga2
I'm updating them as I go along, too. For example, one I just put in today that isn't on there: "Short-term enjoyment for short-term existence."
@ Cramulus: Thanks for the help. I'll definitely take your advice into more than casual consideration. As it is, the main problem I have, that I try to fix, is that I always do things with a goal in mind. I really need to work on the whole "doing something for the sake of doing it" jazz. I figure once I perfect that, my PosterGASMs will go over a lot better.
I had fun while doing it, certainly. But I think my over-all long-term goal still fought against me. Even when I realized that I had a goal, and that I shouldn't, I really couldn't get it to go away. I really need to get into not taking life so seriously and just doing things for the enjoyment. =D
Thanks for Artiststamp, too. Brilliant idea.
Anyways, I think I'm beginning to ramble now.
Thank you to EVERYONE for your support and advice. I'll definitely take it all in, and refine my GASMs into even better forms. -Jack
while looking for new target areas to do this, you may do well to scope out the area(s) first, noting any security/cameras you'll need to avoid.
Also, if you haven't read it yet, i highly recommend this crash course:
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=20324.0
oh yeah...and have fun.
they called it Vandalism :lulz:
maybe littering sure... but no worse then what one would see around student elections
they didnt even have to request the janitor to repaint the walls
bet they didnt recycle all that paper either
Quote from: Pēleus on March 12, 2010, 02:21:52 PM
they called it Vandalism :lulz:
maybe littering sure...
Yeah I wanted to say the same thing... Unless you stapled them to things that got damaged in the process instead of taping them, it's not vandalism. Vandalism is when you damage things. This is littering. Not that it excuses your actions [in the eyes of the management], but calling it "vandalism" ... why not call it TERRRRRRRORISM right away? :lulz:
another idea. if your school has a library or something with a lot of books. print out the memebombs on tiny strips of paper, and slip in the strips of paper one in every book or so. You don't have to do it all at once, just do a few every day. There is no way they will be able to search through all the books, so they will find these slips for YEARS to come. Payne and I did this to great success at a Day of Discord Edinburgh Edition with the books of some of my friends, they have a rather large fantasy books collection and they will be finding teh weird for years and years :D :D
He 'Vandalized' not the physical environs, he Vandalized their message, as enforced by the physical environment. Every wonder why schools resemble prisons?
This is why I'd count it as a win, and get more devious about vandalizing their message.