Oddly, in all of the media metadiscourse surrounding the use of Twitter that has developed in the wake of Iran’s recent political demonstrations, no one has mentioned just how fun it is to tweet one’s way through such events. Because it is! I had a grand time during the Olympic protests in 2008. (Even knocked over a whole bank of motorcycles with my Vespa, which made for good ‘@’ replies!) Back then—remember that in tech time, a year-plus actually counts for something—the tweet-to-protest ratio was pretty low; even the most popular feeds only had a couple of hundred followers (and this was in San Francisco, mind you, center of early Twitter adoption and hotbed of political action). Not to do the Tupac-vs-Biggie thing here, but …
The Yes Men aren’t taking any chances with the numbers for their upcoming action in New York City on September 21st, the day before the G20 shitshow summit commences in Pittsbugh. The pre-game Twitter push is in full effect; follow The Big Event at @whatweneed. No Twitter for you? No problem—give the Yes Men your math, and they’ll text you. There’s still room for stringers on the ground team, too; sign up here. Let’s see what New York turns out for this one.
