Are those four horsemen I see? (Updated)
I can’t help but think that the blog I Can Has Cheezburger?somehow sounds the death knell of all of Western Civilization with every new uploaded picture of a cute animal with a text-speak caption. And yet, somehow, it has inspired my final lecture for kitsch class tomorrow, and for that I am grateful. And plus, I will admit that it has made me spit tea through my nose on several occasions and I only discovered it a few days ago.
One more kitsch class to go, and then one more drawing class. I can’t believe the semester’s almost over.
UPDATED (May 2nd):
One of the things I’ve been thinking and writing about constantly (not publicly doing either, but for my own sake I mean) is this whole idea of whether or not freedom of expression, protest, etc., can exist in cyberspace at all… which is of course an old idea to ruminate about, but made slightly more interesting with all this web 2.0 crap which supposedly lets *you* decide what you want your content to be – as long as it gels ok with whatever corporation you’re having to collaborate with just to get access to the technology. So one of the things I’ve been thinking about is how new forms of protest are going to have to emerge in order to meet this new challenge, but that so far I have had no idea as to what that new form would look like.
And then, this morning, I saw this:
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/05/01/09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b/
(Read the comments if you don’t get it right away – I know I sure as hell didn’t.)
Holy shit. That’s it. The site that offers silly pictures of cats with sillier sayings underneath articulated something incredibly subversive – possibly the most subversive thing I’ve seen on the web in a really long time.
I’m doing an informal presentation at the National Coalition Against Censorship about censorshop issues and the web, and I think I know what image I’m closing with. I look at this little picture of the cat behind a railing and to me, it looks an awful lot like what protest is going to look like in the future (or, I hope). For the first time in quite a while, I feel optimistic about our brave new world.
I love you, icanhascheezburger!
working 
Andrew said,
April 25, 2007 at 7:24 am
Part of me is very sad that school is almost over. The other part of me can’t wait! I can’t wait to read a book that wasn’t assigned to me. I can’t wait to actually read the interesting ones that were assigned. I can’t wait to not have Medieval History examinations! I will miss my studio in Chelsea. I won’t miss having to share the studio with people I don’t like. I will miss sharing the studio with people that I do like. I will miss most of my teachers. I will not miss my Medieval History teacher. I won’t miss having to show my ID to get into the building. I will miss some of the security guards that I have known for years. I won’t miss being locked in after 11PM, but I will miss having a place to make work.
It’s a mixed bag of feelings.