Gothamist likes that the Times devoted part of the front-page today to Ian Urbina's article about people exacting their petty revenge on the trivial aspects of daily life that annoy them. The piece isn't about the kind of grand vengeance that one takes in fighting major career or personal battles, it's more about getting back in small, ineffectual ways at the kind of impersonal annoyances and hypocrisies that crop up day after day.
Asking for a "medium" at Starbucks just to avoid saying "grande?" Done that. Bypassing an automated telephone system by punching zero? Yup. Stacking magazine subscription cards to put back in the mail so that it costs the magazine the postage? Um, no, but that's not a bad idea... In some ways, these little ideas are less about "sticking it to" the offending company, and more about simply registering a protest in an impersonal world. People know that it won't make much difference, but they want someone to know that they object to Starbucks' latte lingo and refuse to comply.
It reminds Gothamist of the dozens (sometimes hundreds) of private citizens that show up every time the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has any kind of meeting or public hearing. Undaunted by the agency's history of ignoring the pleas of commuters, people still show up to speak their peace to Peter Kalikow and Katie Lapp, to tell them that fare hikes and service cuts are unfair, that the subway system is deteriorating and that they need to create better handicapped accessibility. Basically they simply are there to register their disapproval on the public record, even while knowing it won't make any difference.
The examples in Urbina's article were okay, but Gothamist is sure that there are many better small protests that people regularly stage to register disapproval of aspects of city life. What are some of yours?
Image of Passive Aggressive Man from Post Modern Clog and the UGO Hero Machine
