So-called 'guerrilla street artist' TMNK has defaced a billboard advertising Grand Theft Auto IV to make some sort of point about black-on-black violence. According to the self-styled "Nobody," this "art" speaks out about terrorism, black violence and how nobody cares. Or something. I don't ever claim to "get" this kind of "fringe" stuff.
A perfectly legal Billboard advertisement promoting a video game where the participants commit acts of violence, for fun. And scrawled on it a message that is considered illegal, vandalism. One message paid for by a business who simply wants to make money, regardless of the cost. The other, written freely, in hopes of sounding an important alarm, despite it’s potential cost to the author.
I have to hand it to TMNK. If anything is going to stop black people from shooting each other, a scrawling on a New York videogame billboard is going to do it. If only more billboards had been drawn on before now, Tupak would still be alive.
Seriously, I'm not sure exactly what TMNK is trying to prove here, especially with his swipe at Rockstar, who are apparently advertising GTA IV "regardless of the cost." If someone can actually tell me why this is intelligent and provocative, I'm all ears. Personally it seems unfocused and absurd to me, but then, most of what we call "art" these days seems that way.
As for the subject of street violence, I'm perfectly fine with it, especially gang crime. So long as gangs carry on keeping it amongst themselves, it's pretty much just natural selection.
Contest:
5:00 PM on 12.29.2008
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You misspelled Tupac, are you f-in kidding me. Everyone start a riot.
Saints Row 4 Lyfe
XD
Seriously?
Vietnamese children were ground into a fine powder in order to make the discs the game was printed on. Duh.
How wonderfully appropriate.
Why is this shit on the front page? Who the hell care? It seems like whenever anything even remotely related to games and politics happens its a big fucking deal around the gaming blogs. So some guy spray painted a message about black on black violence. Personally I think what he is saying is important, he just may have not picked the best way to say it. I would yammer incoherently more but I need to wait for the blog post about how some news anchor called a game by the wrong name when he was saying he thought it was stupid.
Also, that face in "nobody cares" fucking sucks. TMNK can't draw for shit.
-5/10
The gate will defeat you.
That's not art by the way..unless sloppy handwriting with spray paint is art now? And funnier still is his commentary on art when GTA has the best concept art around..I forget the artists name but his stuff is incredible..at leat in my opinion.
1) Why did you?
2) Why comment?
I guess it's easier to complain about a clearly defined target like GTA, rather than "A culture of victimhood that, while having legitimate qualms with the law and more importantly the semi-stratified social system, belies it's self-proclaimed principles and goals by perpetuating itself with ignorance."
I mean, it would be hard to write all that in grafitti. You'd have to write an article or something.
We all have free will. Those who choose to kill, have chosen their own ill path. Wish they'd look at the real problems instead of for easy scapegoats.
By the way, I really don't see this as a swipe at Rockstar. To me it's more of a swipe at a society that is in love with a game that glorifies violence, and more specifically gang violence.
Also, fail for the apostrophe in "it's".
What the fuck? Does that mean they're supposed to kill white people instead, as if that's any better?
Some dumb shit.
Jim wins.
Sieg heil, bitch.
You might say that this stuff will always happen and it is a byproduct of human nature, and I wouldn't disagree, but I would say if there wasn't massive chunks of the population living in 3rd world-like conditions there would be a lot less murdering going on.
Listen, I don't pretend to understand inner-city life and I'm really not PC by any stretch, but I'm also not going to dismiss something that is a huge issue for millions of people as simply culling the herd and call it a day. Just because it doesn't directly affect me, a middle class white guy, doesn't mean it isn't important.
A girl from my area, who was not a member of any gangs, was shot dead outside a night club in Toronto recently. I really don't think her family thought her death was a byproduct of natural selection.
Believe it or not, I've lived in these kinds of conditions. I spent a good portion of my childhood sleeping on floors, and up until recently I lived in areas rife with knife crime, headstomping and a rather infamous incident on my very street where a girl got her face set on fire.
Poverty is no excuse for falling into that kind of bullshit "gangsta" lifestyle. It's fucking pathetic. You have two choices if you grow up poor -- either work to better yourself, or prove the world right about your status as a scumbag. It's a shame too many people choose to go with the latter.
It is if they choose to have that attitude.
Why report on this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2MKnHeE8N0
That's my favorite song of his! The original version is the best.
An incalculable number of societal problems (mainly poverty, but it doesn't end there) has created an environment where it is much easier to get involved in this lifestyle. You say it's their fault for taking the easy way out. I say true, but society needs to shoulder some blame for continuing to allow this environment to exist. I don't think there's a definite answer and both sides have some merit IMO.
And we seem to agree that the effects of this violence aren't restricted to people who more or less had it coming, which is cool.
And I apologize if I came off as a self-righteous boob, which really wasn't my intention.
By the way, it's always great to see some thought-provoking stuff like this on the Toid once in a while.
It's almost never so simple as simply, and I'll paraphrase, "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps." I also agree that there are usually other alternatives than the "gangsta" lifestyle. But, at least insofar as poor inner-city African-Americans, you're talking about a people that has been raped of their culture and subjugated for hundreds of years, given the worst schools and living conditions which in some cases still persist to this day. To say that they simply need to 'get their act together' is a gross oversimplification that might allow some to maintain a nonconstructive and ignorant attitude toward the urban socio-economic conditions that breed crime and violence. Crime is a result of desperation.
Now to connect inner-city violence to an entertainment like GTA might be a little untenable. But it offers an interesting angle of a company that produces that kind of gangster experience for *mostly* white middle-class males to engage in, suggesting perhaps that our experience of it as a fun game belies our blatant lack of concern of its real-world implications, and perhaps also a patent lack of concern in addresing the issues of inner-city crime.
And this aint art. I bet my balls can be more artistic than this guy
I mean, my knee-jerk reaction is to blame it on lack of education-- bad schools and poor areas and so on-- but my brother is a teacher in a mixed income area, and I see what he goes through. Most of the poorer kids don't even try to do well in school because their parents don't give a shit, it's not part of their 'culture', and they apparently assume that they either can't do the work, or it would be useless if they did. How do you help someone like that? And since there are those few who put forth the effort, and THEY are the ones who deserve your (limited) time and your respect, SHOULD you help someone who doesn't even want to help themselves? Isn't the responsibility primarily on them to at least show some enthusiasm?
If socially disadvantaged people were struggling tooth and nail to better their situation and were being kept down by the heartless white/rich/whatever people, then this would be a very simple issue and all of us not-poor people should be Very Ashamed of Ourselves. But in my experience, that's not what's actually happening. Not completely, but to a large extent, that strata of society has been conquered by a perpetuating cycle of failure. It can only be broken from the inside.
I realize this is getting far beyond the scope of the original article, I won't go any further on the topic.
Yeah I didn't even think of that, and what's up with your response, Jim? Are you just joking or are you really a Nazi sympathizer, I assume you're joking, but either way it's kind of disturbing...I mean, you're really just coming off as kind of racist and ingnorant to tell the truth...do you have to trash everything in an angry, presumptive way?
But as for whoever typed this...
"A perfectly legal Billboard advertisement promoting a video game where the participants commit acts of violence, for fun. And scrawled on it a message that is considered illegal, vandalism. One message paid for by a business who simply wants to make money, regardless of the cost. The other, written freely, in hopes of sounding an important alarm, despite it’s potential cost to the author."
More outdated nonsensical "property is theft" shit. I could as easily say "the business just wants to provide people with an entertaining product while you want to lecture them no matter what the cost." You can't use "my intents or more moral" as an excuse for vandalism or stealing. People care more about Grand Theft Auto than your message, I'm afraid.