[citation needed]
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Matt Mechtley, of Tempe, Arizona, is a fan of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that allows users to post and edit articles. He's also into culture jamming, a term coined by the prankster band Negativland to describe parodic defacements of billboards -- and which has come to mean any sabotage/subversion of "media," from advertisements to newspaper boxes. On January 1, he announced a thought-provoking prank that combines these two passions.
"One of my favorite quirks about [Wikipedia]," Mechtley writes on his blog, Biphenyl, "are the little [citation needed] tags that users can place in an article, indicating that a dubious claim needs a reference." Mechtley decided that he'd like to slap [citation needed] tags onto real-world ads, signs, even graffiti that make what he regards as dubious claims. So he printed up 250 8-by-2-inch stickers, and handed them out to friends -- who used some of them, and handed the rest out to others. He also provides an image of the sticker for downloading, at Biphenyl; and he's using the photo-sharing site Flickr to document the results, which are tagged "citationneeded" and "wikiffiti."
It's amusing to see Wikipedia's [citation needed] tag on a graffiti-ed warning about "peak oil" -- the point after which the rate of global petroleum production will supposedly enter its terminal decline; it's even funnier to see a Palm Centro smartphone ad promising "a more social life" get stickered. Which gives me an idea. You know those ads for Sony's "Reader Digital Book" plastered all over the MBTA, the ones that say "Sexier than a librarian"? Somebody get me a sticker!
Via Boing Boing. Sony ad via Jessamyn West.
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A fine idea, if a bit primly twee. Even better than Lynne Truss picketing movie theaters with an apostrophe.
Billboard-sized ones would be fun.
Thanks, Lissa! Always good to hear from one of Boston's finest journalists.
Thanks for the mention of those horrid Sony ads and the stickered 'improvement' they cry out for. They caused a minor kerfuffle in library blog-land back in the fall when they blanketed South Station (and other national transit centers) and I thought (hoped) that that would be the end of it. But, nooooo, now the next edition of tag lines ('..your librarian may vary...') annoys my ride home from work. Sony's commentary on the subject isn't heartening: http://news.sel.sony.com/electronicsblog/?p=23 You'd think, since they are trying to sell reading that they'd pick a different demographic to alienate. But putting one's dollars where one's mouth is can be.... I won't be buying any Sony products any time soon.
Aw, Josh, I love you too.
Oh, and congrats on getting comments up in this b----. Bravo, bravo.
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