MB Civic

Penny in the New Statesman ..

At the South by South-West music and technology convention in Austin, Texas, a man called Clarence [is] standing outside the conference centre, begging delegates with a hopeful smile to use him to fire up their smartphones. He wears a portable wifi connection and a T-shirt that says “I am a wireless hotspot”. Clarence has been homeless since Hurricane Katrina destroyed his New Orleans house. Turning homeless people into wireless hotspots gives an entirely new meaning to the phrase “get connected”. When I read the words “controversy” and “advertising agency” in the same sentence, my bullshit-o-meter starts honking, and sure enough, a little digging reveals that the idea of turning destitute men and women into living wifi hotspots was engineered by a New York PR firm .. The argument goes something like this: low-paid work is dehumanising anyway, so, this being an age of austerity, why not objectify people just a little bit more and pay them a little bit less?

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