There’s more of them than us
Jason Schlosberg’s remarkable video (embedded below) of a herd of water buffalo rescuing a calf from a pride of hungry lions has been viewed on YouTube 23,498,437 times, as of this writing. The “Battle at Kruger” is more than just a wonderful example of the personal media revolution; it’s also a metaphor for the disruption itself.
The lions represent traditional media and marketing (or pick your favorite institution). They’re just doing their thing as kings of the media jungle — setting the information agenda, attacking the public (marketing IS war, right?), and living the life, regardless of the consequences to anybody else. They are, after all, lions!
The visual statement of being backed into a corner by the masses — themselves now equipped to fight back — is a stunning illustration of the uselessness of the mainstream continuing to operate as normal. Like the buffalo, people are now informed, empowered, enabled, connected and involved, and they’re fighting back against the institutions of modernism, which they view as self-serving.
This entry was posted on Sunday, January 6th, 2008 at 10:28 am and is filed under Postmodernism, Disruptions, Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 6th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Take the metaphor a little further…
Last words on the video are something along the lines of “You could sell this.”
And from the YouTube page:
“National Geographic has sent us back to Africa to develop a special giving the behind-the-scenes story on how we got this amazing footage. Potential airdate: Spring 2008.”
The buffalo still dream of being lions? The lions say “If you can’t beat em, join em?”
January 7th, 2008 at 10:21 am
[…] Terry Heaton’s PoMo Blog » Blog Archive » There’s more of them than us “The visual statement of being backed into a corner by the masses — themselves now equipped to fight back — is a stunning illustration of the uselessness of the mainstream continuing to operate as normal.” (tags: video marketing community nefarious analogy) […]