When my friends Karen and Annina were confronted with an offensive sticker on the laptop of someone working at our lab, they organized a very constructive and effective intervention.
I was so impressed that I made a short illustrated write-up of the story on my wiki.
Very inventive indeed. One down… lots more to go…
Excellent response by Karen & Annina. I couldn’t think of a better way to respond, although a few not so great ideas came to mind.
While I would never put the original sticker on my laptop (or anywhere) I would proudly display the one that Karen & Annina designed.
My respect goes out to both of them,
Mike
As I dented, I love it.
Three remarks. First, I presume your real reason
for posting the pictures was to display the original
sticker. Second, a forward slash (top-right to bottom
left), technically a “bend”, indicates approval, so the
joke’s on your friends; to ban something, it needs to slant
the other way. Finally, making a guy add a sticker to his
laptop is an odd way to flirt. I approve.
Nathan, I want to assume you are being completely sacrastic but still find the jokes in bad taste.
1. That doesn’t sound like Mako.
2. I’ve never heard of the direction of the slash mattering–just that it’s crossed out.
3. Or to embarrass him…
HTML entities don’t work in here apparently. Please delete broken version of this comment.
BMH: I’m afraid my sarcasm already encompassed your finding. My posting whooshed right through sarcasm and came out the other side into unimpeachable seriousness. Clue: attention is currency.
By the way, here’s the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_symbol
Mackenzie: You’re still so young. BTW, what does “dented” mean, here? Do any of these apply? :
http://www.urbandictionary.co/define.php?term=dent
You know how when you say something on Twitter you “tweet” it? When you say something on identi.ca, you “dent” it.
Also, that Wikipedia link you pointed to says, “Whereas the “prohibition sign” has been so widely used in advertising and promotions that now any variation of the design flipped left or right or varied in hue is considered acceptable and recognized by the general public as a symbol of prohibition,” meaning it’s just fine to flip it around however you want and have it be understood. It says nothing of it changing the meaning.
Hey Mako, thanks for posting and congrats to all those involved, even the laptop owner.
I’ve been bothered by a few things lately such as how local government elections are run, a site that excludes anything but IE (http://www.elections.org.za) and other issues and have been wondering how to be a positive influence.
This has just given me so many ideas. Thanks :)
Very nice to see such a creative and friendly way to approach being offended – well played!
I would like to do the same with people who park badly their cars and create danger situations along streets…
One last remark… is this sticker meant to be popular? Are you trying, by this effort, to create the impression that feminism (or, perhaps, training up on feminism) is all about banning things? ‘Cuz, you know, that doesn’t seem very inspiring. Except to some people, of course.
@Mackenzie: Thank you for the lexograph. Maybe you’d better get that entered into the Urban Dictionary posthaste.
@Giovanni: Hey, your name means young! There are other, better things to do with cars parked badly. I proudly recall helping an antique curio-shop owner in Portland get a car whose alarm siren had been howling in front of her shop for a half-hour towed by the police. (The curios were antique, not the owner.) I like to imagine the tow truck driver found that the traffic on the route to the lot got out of his way.
Mako, thanks for sharing this. Mind if I repost?
@Giovanni: A campaign to get motorists to wise up would be great. I’m still sweating from my last bike commute this week, and am angry that (despite explicitly following all rules, and having set out with the goal of avoiding confrontation) I’ve been nearly hit and yelled at every day this week. It’s almost a truism to say that there are many cyclists out there that’d join the cause.
It was a much funnier sticker before your friends’ “augmentation”.