There are times when my outrage is so great that I lose the ability to adequately express it. Such has been the case this week after news broke that British advertising company BBH labs had the mind-bogglingly offensive idea to use homeless people as WiFi hotspots last weekend during the SXSW festival in Austin, TX.
Fortunately for me (and you, dear readers), The Daily Show With Jon Stewart put into words the glaringly obvious problems with BBH’s intrinsically offensive literal objectification of people who are not, as they would suggest, less than human. (Oh look, I found a few words.)
Yes, I know that BBH is spinning this as a conversation starter to get people talking about the homeless problem. Joel Usher said the same thing about his now-defunct Android app HoboHunt, and it was just as much public relations hogwash in his case as it is in this one. Yes, I know that people have interviewed the human beings-cum-things in the SXSW program who said they were totally okay with this. Of course they were. Being okay with it is the difference between eating and not eating, and a person’s willingness to denigrate himself for food doesn’t mean that our culture should take him up on the offer. When I heard about this program, my first reaction was to joke that I was checking the price of bus fare to Austin. As a currently jobless American, I was only half-kidding.
Here’s the bottom line. You can throw all the public relations spin you want at this horrifying idea that dehumanizes human beings and robs them of their dignity, and you’ll still have an indefensible idea that should never have left the advertising company’s boardroom. Our society is supposed to be better than this, and I’m dumbfounded (obviously, not literally) that we aren’t.
I disagree. This was a positive experience for these men They made some money, they got a bit of attention for themselves and the plight of the homeless. The biggest positive for these men, I’m certain, is they made money. They made no less that $250.00 not counting access cash. Maybe people need to be poor to realize how much $250.00 is or means to someone who is poor. These guys don’t care about what status anyone gives them over whole ordeal.
People in ivory towers can outrage over this weak moral dilemma, but at the end of the week these guys had $250.00 for doing, lets be honest, nothing.
People referring to them as “things” are ignorant. It’s just another stereotype, not the fault of those it’s directed at. The outrage needs to be redirected from BBHlabs and put squarely on the people using such terms.
My hat is off to BBHlabs. I have mad respect for the participants for not only taking part in homeless hotspots, but for dealing with the “outrage.”