Dirty, Fat Perverts!
Feb. 18th, 2004 11:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talktoolooseA poster for a new ad campaign to make the Internet safe for kids really got my goat this morning (and they better give him back!). It featured a picture of a man who was posing in a chat room as a 12 year old girl named Katie, busily luring poor, gullible Megan into a meeting that will undoubtedly include sodomy and the release of Sarin into the subway system.
Predictably, the man pictured was a computer geek -- 50 pounds oveweight, greasy long hair pulled back in a pony-tail, bearded, in a t-shirt and jeans and sweating profusely as he hunched over a terminal in a darkened room, weaving his evil machinations.
He looked exactly like a scarier version of Comic-Book Guy from the Simpsons.
I don't know about y'all, but physical features of this guy call to mind some of my friends, people I admire and, to a certain extent, me. This monster shared attributes of appearance with people I know who are altruistic, kind, responsible and benefit society with their geeky skills. The picture reminded me of anti-semitic portrayals of Jews drawn by nazi propogandists -- features that don't look that different from some of my relatives but recontextualized into horror. (In fact, this is a lovely demonstration of how a good cartoonist can imbue emotion and passion and intention into line and gesture.)
The message is clear to the parents of vulnerable middle-class children (apparently much more vulnerable than we were 30 years ago -- apparently much more vulnerable than the 100,000 children living below the poverty line in Canada who don't have computers in their homes): a trustworthy person is clean-cut and trim. A good member of society is dressed in either office wear or polo casuals. His hair is short. He works out. A man who resembles the one pictured is either a pedophile or a generator of computer viruses.
I despise the climate of fear we are being encouraged to live in and I despise the fact that our desire to protect our children is manipulated for other ends. This manufactured paranoia serves the segment of leadership who want privacy reduced, who want dissension and essential democracy silenced.
Furthermore, we are holding our own children hostage in the name of this protection. We are trapping them behind the walls of fortresses in gated neighbourhoods. We are kidnapping them out of real communities into suburban housing developments that are built without meeting places, where their parents' cars are the only way to get anywhere. Where there is no way that a conspiracy of kids can sneak down to the stand of trees by the river and build an elven kingdom that will repel the alien invaders and earn its place in song and story.
Predictably, the man pictured was a computer geek -- 50 pounds oveweight, greasy long hair pulled back in a pony-tail, bearded, in a t-shirt and jeans and sweating profusely as he hunched over a terminal in a darkened room, weaving his evil machinations.
He looked exactly like a scarier version of Comic-Book Guy from the Simpsons.
I don't know about y'all, but physical features of this guy call to mind some of my friends, people I admire and, to a certain extent, me. This monster shared attributes of appearance with people I know who are altruistic, kind, responsible and benefit society with their geeky skills. The picture reminded me of anti-semitic portrayals of Jews drawn by nazi propogandists -- features that don't look that different from some of my relatives but recontextualized into horror. (In fact, this is a lovely demonstration of how a good cartoonist can imbue emotion and passion and intention into line and gesture.)
The message is clear to the parents of vulnerable middle-class children (apparently much more vulnerable than we were 30 years ago -- apparently much more vulnerable than the 100,000 children living below the poverty line in Canada who don't have computers in their homes): a trustworthy person is clean-cut and trim. A good member of society is dressed in either office wear or polo casuals. His hair is short. He works out. A man who resembles the one pictured is either a pedophile or a generator of computer viruses.
I despise the climate of fear we are being encouraged to live in and I despise the fact that our desire to protect our children is manipulated for other ends. This manufactured paranoia serves the segment of leadership who want privacy reduced, who want dissension and essential democracy silenced.
Furthermore, we are holding our own children hostage in the name of this protection. We are trapping them behind the walls of fortresses in gated neighbourhoods. We are kidnapping them out of real communities into suburban housing developments that are built without meeting places, where their parents' cars are the only way to get anywhere. Where there is no way that a conspiracy of kids can sneak down to the stand of trees by the river and build an elven kingdom that will repel the alien invaders and earn its place in song and story.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-02-18 08:10 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-18 08:16 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-18 08:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-18 10:18 am (UTC)Paranoia's never fun. Excessive paranoia is not only unfun but ultimately harmful. Shall we all lock ourselves in our rooms?
no subject
Date: 2004-02-18 11:08 am (UTC)The most absurd part is the chatroom text: something along the list of "I collect dolls too".
Re:
Date: 2004-02-18 11:21 am (UTC)I think it was on the Eastbound platform at Bathurst, too.
You don't exist. You're a phantom. So am I. We never end up at games night at the same time. Maybe we're the same person.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-18 11:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-18 08:42 pm (UTC)But I will agree wholeheartedly on the pissedoffedness that all these types of ads cause me.. the world is trying to give itself a nervous complex. Your plane will not be hijacked, the student card you lost will not be used to clear out your savings, your child will not be raped by your computer.
Don't watch the news , ban CNN, shoot first ask questions later.. wait..
Also, tres cool comment re: the Nazi Propaganda.. I wouldn't have thought of that.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-19 06:35 am (UTC)You know who looks "molesty"? Someone in the process of molesting. Beyond that, all bets are off. A generation ago, nuns and priests were seen to be the souls of propriety. Now, to some, they look "molesty".
Re:
Date: 2004-02-19 05:15 pm (UTC)I suppose I might have a different view if I looked like the guy..
no subject
Date: 2004-03-10 12:25 pm (UTC)Not as hot as Chief Wiggum, though.