Revolutionary

Seems like my plan of going to bed early and not getting sick didn’t really work. I woke up this morning feeling worse, but I think it’s just a cold, which is what always happens to me when I don’t get enough sleep and/or get stressed out (read: finals). I went to the pharmacy a little while ago and got some crazy French cold medicine though so I hope that’ll help. Needless to say, I slept in again this morning and missed a couple seminars I’d wanted to attend. Will.i.am had a seminar today but I actually had no intention of going to that anyways… plainly put, the Black Eyed Peas are god-awful. I didn’t go to the Nick Jonas seminar for the same reason. I really just don’t want to dignify such fluff with my attendance, and I’m sorry for how pretentious that sounds, but honestly. Nick Jonas?

I did attend a master class from a really unique Belgian ad agency today, 20Something. They’re entirely run by students who take yearlong internships at the agency. It was amazing to me that they were actually able to attract clients with a premise like that, but apparently they do well enough, and clients like having a young, fresh perspective. The entire program is powered by another Belgian agency, 6+1, who act as coaches to the students. They said they’ve had some considerable challenges since they started the program but it seems to be doing well. How cool would it be to do an internship where you’re actually doing exactly what it is you’d do in a real job, handling clients and all?

Our professors set us up with another amazing speaker today, Amr Salama, an Egyptian filmmaker who was very active in the revolution. He spoke on a panel earlier today but I missed it, and I’m kicking myself for doing so, because he was so interesting. He said that, basically, consumers will use social media to call corporations on wrongdoing in the same way the Egyptians used it to speak out against Mubarak and start a revolution. Advertisers are going to have to be aware of this fact when moving forward with their social media strategies, and his word of advice to us was never to take on a client you can’t stand behind. I like to hear this, because I’ve heard a lot of talk about the good things companies like Coca-Cola or PepsiCo or McDonald’s do, but I would never work for them, despite their non-profit efforts. I disagree with the entire concept of fast-food culture and I think that doing non-profit work in a company like that is just a mask for the fact that the product has caused harm to the people that buy it. I’m well aware of the argument that people should be able to buy whatever food they want, no matter what the health costs, and I agree with this. But fast food and soft drinks have become a culture, they’ve changed the way the entire agricultural industry operates.

I could go on and on about this, about how so many low-income families are forced to eat crap food because it’s the only thing they can afford now and it’s the fault of the fast-food industry, but I’ll wrap it up. I just enjoyed hearing someone at this festival point out the fact that advertisers should be responsible, even if corporations aren’t. If the advertising world were more selective about the products they do work for rather than just going for big-money clients, the corporations couldn’t survive. As much as everyone here touts their creativity and how they’re all artists or whatever, so much of it is just about chasing a dollar, which I think is contrary to the concept of art and creativity. Of course this is the standard criticism of the industry, but until today I hadn’t heard anyone here mention it.

Amr had a really amazing personal story to tell too, about his experiences during the revolution. He was there on the first day and was one of the first to run to Tahir Square, and on that first day the police kidnapped him. He escaped and posted about the experience on Facebook, and thousands of people shared it. I asked him what the mood was like there now – whether people were still full of hope or if they’d grown disillusioned. He said that people are panicked because no one knows what their identity is or what to call themselves. But he also said that people are getting things done and everyone is working really hard to inform the population about how to be democratic citizens. I didn’t want to mention it with the group, but when he was talking about people trying to figure out how they want to align themselves, I was eerily reminded of Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran. She talks in that novel about how excited everyone was to find their identities at the start of the Iranian revolution, but we all know how that turned out, so it was not altogether pleasant for me to make that connection as I was listening to Amr talk about hopefulness and how convinced he is that Egypt will figure it out. In any case, it was really amazing to talk with him. I can’t imagine another time when I’d have the chance to talk to someone who was so active in the revolution.

Our professors have been really great this week about setting up times for us to talk with interesting people, and I’m appreciative for it. I think it’s these talks that will stick with me more than the huge seminars. After Amr’s talk we all headed home. I can’t believe there are only two days of the festival left, and then just a week here in France. This week has become a bit of a weird time for me, because I’m in the strange space between student and professional. I don’t feel like I’m either one of those things. It’s hard not to just think of myself as unemployed and overwhelmed, but even though I’m staying optimistic, in about a week and a half’s time I will be done with college and officially jobless. This is a talk for another day though, so I’ll wrap it up.