Propaganda eat itself.
Here is an idea for concrete tactical proactive action to make the world a better place in our chaotic day and age.
I’m a hypnotherapist. Hence I know a bit about the human psyche.
A great way to affect people’s mind is repeated direct exposure. That’s the idea of propaganda and advertisement. They leave a footprint in our minds subconsciously, either we like it or not. We’re not aware of it, but it does.
Nowadays our public space is inundated with commercial messages to have us buy stuff we don’t need and makes us feel uncomfortable about ourselves. It creates needs, and it works. That’s why corporations still pay top dollars to occupy our public space and therefore our minds.
Let’s hack that.
What if we launched a large scale Public space take over?
Let’s publish messages designed to wake people up.
Such as: “You are good enough” or “Tell your mother you love her” or more educational: “Sugar makes you fat. Not fat”.
If you want to change the world for the better, You are in the business of changing minds.
If you think about it, climate change or political abuse is not a problem of climate or politics, it’s a problem minds which don’t want to update. Minds are the root causes of our societal problems, and one of the most efficient way to go fix the world is to focus on changing them. Changing minds will change behaviours, and updated behaviours will eventually update our concrete reality.
Keep calm and carry on
In fact that’s how the British government brainwashed people to “Keep calm and carry on” during the second world war. They printed millions of copies which were left for 4 weeks (The time it takes to form a habit) just to have British people chill during time of collective anxiety. And it worked!
The cheer repetition of the message and ubiquity managed to leave a permanent footprint in the belief system of British people. And every time someone talks about it, it gets reinforced in the collective unconscious.
Everybody has been influenced by it, either they liked it or not. That is the idea. And we still hear the echo of that 70+ years old endeavor.
What if we used the weapons of the system against itself?
By reclaiming the public space, we reclaim the content of our minds.
This solution is non-confrontational, highly actionable and potentially very impactful. That’s to be opposed to the many protests which unfortunately don’t always bring change we want to the table. Because it’s reactive. We need to think of promoting the type of ‘better world’ we want to live in. And because most people agree that the world needs a redesign, but no one knows in which direction, shape or form it’s gonna be, at least we can all align on our common values: Love, peace, tolerance, co-operation, respect, wisdom…
Do we want to let religions have the monopolies on virtues?
Beside If we offers only positive messages it will be impossible to discredit as a movement.
Any individual can print a message amongst a pre-selected list (so as to avoid abuses and maintain consistency) and post them in the streets on their own accord.
You can purchase sticky paper on amazon on your own and get started. Make it as impactful and iconic as you can white paper with heavy black font. In the design world, it translates as:
“No messing around. The message is all”
No signature too. It’s about promoting the message, not the messenger.
Don’t ask for permission. Do it.
Take back control of the public space!
And don’t be afraid of putting stuff on public walls. Nothing’s gonna happen. I was worried the first 2 or 3 but then I realised, wait… actually this is London: No one gives a shit about me! And no one did. So go for it! You’re safe.
Passers by will not be able to ignore it, at the very least it will lighten their day, at best, it will be a subject of water-cooler conversation: “Have you seen the ad…”. That’s a type from Marketing. It is not what you tell people directly, it’s what people tell each others about you that matters.
And finally, every message It will leave a positive footprint in their mind subconsciously but also consciously. Cause it will stand out. If you own enough public space in a big city such as London, you potentially have the escape velocity to create a meme that can spread to an other city and on and on… This will spread positive action all over the world and could be a spark to take our collective wisdom to the level that our times need.
Food for thoughts.
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