For those of you who don’t know, I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (there are approximately two and a half million people that live in Toronto, making it the largest city in Canada).
A few days ago, I heard about the very bizarre story of an art project gone horribly wrong — where a Toronto art student placed a ’sculpture’ (which closely resembled a bomb) in the Royal Ontario Museum (since most readers are not from Toronto, the ROM is one of the biggest museums here in Canada).
To make the story even stranger, the art student recorded a video of both his placing of the bomb in the ROM, as well as of a fake ‘explosion’ for his art project, and placed them on YouTube. Understandably, not everyone thought this was either very artistic, or frankly, very smart. You can watch an interview with the art student here.
Sadly, not only did this stunt waste the time of several dozen police officers, it also forced the cancellation of an AIDS benefit dinner that was supposed to be held at the ROM that evening. Not to mention the people working in shops on the street who probably got sent home early and may have lost half a day’s pay.
YouTube has no immediate plans to take the videos down, and rightly so I think. While this one person’s actions go beyond just stupid (into the realm of literally criminally stupid), I think we’re better off keeping the legacy of his stupidity around (which will hopefully serve as a reminder of how inane his actions were).
As I’ve often said on this site, technology can be a tool, a catalyst, an enabler — but it is usually people that are to blame when something goes wrong. And in this case, the self-promotion angle surely had something to do with the videos going on YouTube.
That’s the double-edged sword of user-created media — it actually does seem to capture the sometimes random, bizarre or unpleasant things that capture people’s interest.
What do you think? Shoud the YouTube video be taken down? Is YouTube to blame for this in any way?
Like this post? Subscribe now to the full RSS feed.
December 4th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
It seems to me that this stunt falls in the category of yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater. As a society we have accepted that this is not funny, it is dangerous, and it serves no purpose even if classified as art. These are limits of behavior that we place given the practical problems of a lot of people in a small place and whose safety we all share responsibility for.
YouTube is just making Andy Warhol’s prediction of our ability to achieve brief fame. They are creating the equivalent of a crowded theater by reaching a large population in an instance. We do not give up on the idea of a theater because some joker decides to play a prank like yelling “fire”. Nor would we put a sound deadening agent in a theater so that someone yelling “fire” cannot be heard. We would lose the utility of the theater - and besides we would not hear it if there was a fire and someone legitimately warned the others.
So, YouTube would have a very hard time if it was expected to make such judgment calls, which I am sure happens with regularity. I would expect that YouTube would want to classify it under a classification like “stupid pranks” so it is not given any more dignity that it deserves. I would not fault them for removing it, or for keeping it. I would expect them not to edit comments that it might raise - expecting that the wisdom of the crowds will prevail
Interesting problem that you raise - time and space contracting to create new opportunities, and risks
suresh
December 12th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Thanks for your comment Suresh. I would argue that this young man committed a crime and should be held accountable for it, and receive a punishment that is no more or less than anyone else who committed a similar but less public crime.
Despite his argument as to the artistic nature of his actions, I hope he will see that the money involved in dealing with the consequences of what he did was not his to spend. And I agree with you, it is the equivalent of yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, it’s no laughing matter, and the artistic nature of the action is negligible to the point of ridiculousness.