We are Anonymous.Recently, it has come to our attention that several online retailers have decided to ride the coattails of our sudden popularity by offering aparrel and other swag bearing our image. This is extremely offensive to Anonymous, as the very idea of wearing an article that identifies one as anonymous flies directly into the face of who exactly we are. We are anonymous. We cook your meals. We haul your trash. We connect your calls. We drive your ambulances and we guard you while you sleep. We put you under the knife to remove your bloated, infected spleen. We deliver your mail. We relay the evening news from the comfort of your television set, and we work dilligently to print it to give you something to read with your coffee and croissants the next morning. We are everyone and we are no one. We do not need to advertise our identity.Because our image is not a copyright, we can not stop anyone from selling items bearing it. However, we can suggest that you do not purchase these items. Wearing anything that tells the world you are anonymous compromises the veil of protection being anonymous provides, as well as cancelling out your anonymity. Wearing a t-shirt is like wearing a crosshair. You become an easy target for the Cult of $cientology and it puts you at serious risk of harm by its operatives. Use good judgement. Do not compromise yourself and your fellow Anonymous. Do not reveal your personal information to an online retailer that could possibly be a front for data mining operations by the cult.Remain Anonymous. Remain vigilant.We are Anonymous.We are LegionWe do not forgive.We do not forget.And we are certainly not some Xenu-forsaken fashion statement!
Mike Wesch on 19 Jul 08he Two Steps I'll Always Be Ahead Of You By Dear Media, I usually don't like to brag until after the war has officially been won, but some sites have already blown my cover, so I am without the luxury of waiting. On June 19th, Bandaids launched a YouTube Viewer with the intention of making Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend the Most Watched Video of all time on YouTube. In the time that the Viewer was running, it recorded 1.2 million loads of Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend video page on YouTube. Entertainment Tonight, Perez Hilton, Wired.com, The Globe and Mail, The Sydney Morning Herald, TMF, and hundreds of other media outlets around the world picked up on the story resulting in quite the frenzy. Some praised the campaign saying, "It's the kind of view-gaming that advertisers would normally consider fraud - that is, if what the fans were doing wasn't better than the best advertising Lavigne and her label RCA could buy." Others... okay, the majority... just called us dirty old cheaters. But like a magician revealing the M.O. to a convincing trick, I have to admit that Bandaids' YouTube Campaign was nothing but misdirection. Bandaiders didn't cheat: the YouTube Viewer was a Hoax. All along, I knew that YouTube capped the number of views added to a video at 200 per IP address per day. As such, the only way to make Girlfriend the most watched video on YouTube the fast way was to increase our reach, not our views per person. And the best way to do that was to use viral marketing to tap into traditional news sources. So our members went about inflating the count on the YouTube Viewer and spreading the link around the net. In the mean time, the real end game of the campaign was unfolding nicely. As media outlets around the world began accusing Bandaids of cheating Avril's way into the record books, they drove thousands upon thousands of curious folks to watch Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend video on YouTube (yes, even you Perez). This resulted in a much larger boost to Avril'
