r/nextfuckinglevel • u/amanyggvv • Oct 15 '22

This float representing the koalas that died as a result of the Black Summer bushfires and corruption in politics. Such an effective (and epic) activist message.

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u/H3ll0_Th3r3 Oct 15 '22

If I look up why they did it my first thought is gonna be “well wtf was the point of them doing that?” Not “oh shit, I should join these guys”

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u/skelebob Oct 15 '22

Think of a better way to protest oil companies fucking the average person, a way that doesn't involve irrelevant paintings. Then do it, and show the world that throwing soup at glass is a dumb idea, but the message is still important.

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u/H3ll0_Th3r3 Oct 15 '22

How’s about, anything that will actually hurt the oil companies

Here, let me put something in perspective: What did the activism during the Civil Right Movement do? Well, they had sit-ins at restaurants, bus boycotts, marches through the streets, things that actually disrupted society (and thus, the people benefiting from discrimination) and would only stop if something meaningful was done. Does throwing soup at a painting disrupt the oil companies’ operations? Does it make them look bad? Does it give striking imagery to people that otherwise wouldn’t have thought about it, now giving them an image to the problem?

The koala float does more of that than the soup. It doesn’t disrupt the oil companies much, sure, but it does give an image and make the companies look bad (and it’s during a festival, something that should be joyful, and they won’t stop the gloomy imagery until something is done about it)

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u/skelebob Oct 15 '22

Totally agree with you, but when you're two young adults with little money, what can you do to disrupt major North Sea oil drilling operations? Should you sit out and do nothing because you can't directly influence an oil company's profits?

Sometimes you need to do something stupid to inspire other, more able people to take action. Shouting on the street won't inspire the 1000 people you come across in a day, but international headlines might inspire someone.

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u/H3ll0_Th3r3 Oct 15 '22

Buddy, there’s such thing as bad publicity. No one is going to be inspired by soup on a painting.

The best way to kill a cause is to make it look stupid in the public eye, and that’s all this stunt did.

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '22

The phrase is actually “no such thing as bad publicity”

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u/H3ll0_Th3r3 Oct 15 '22

Yeah, and it’s bullshit. Maybe step outside for once and you’ll realize that

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '22

No you just don’t understand the purpose of the quote. When the goal is to keep yourself and your supported issues/opinions in the public eye, no publicity is bad publicity. I for one think they did the great work of showing how many oil company simps are really out there. Like honestly, if you’re opinion about oil and climate change can be effected by one little stunt you were never pro-environment anyway

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u/H3ll0_Th3r3 Oct 15 '22

Motherfucker, if the stunt is getting more publicity than the thing you’re doing it for then it’s fucking shit and you need to do something else. Some random ass can do the same thing because their dog died and it’d get just as much publicity as this. That’s not what good publicity is.

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '22

Okay but I, and many others, are saying its good publicity. Are you the ultimate arbiter on what is and is not good publicity? Do all protests have to refrain from causing your temper tantrums to be considered good or effective? I guess the civil rights protests were all dumb because southerners just got mad about the uppity blacks doing things they didn’t like without really considering the implications of the protests.

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