The Shorty Awards recognise the shining best in “social media content creators”. Those last four words, when strung together, are perhaps the most boring in western civilisation. So why does chaotic Anonymous want a stupid corporate-buzz award? We’re wondering too.
This isn’t some zit-faced rogue “Anonymous” account — it’s Anonymous’ largest (and one of its de-facto official) Twitter account, and it let loose the following yesterday, with all the zeal of a 7th-grade girl running for student council:
✰ATTENTION✰ 1 day left to nominate @YourAnonNews for a Shorty Award in #Activism. Do it here: http://shortyawards.com/YourAnonNews Thanks!
Stars! Capital letters! They really want this thing — they even retweeted a Shorty Award tweet later as an extra reminder to vote. So, yeah, it’s strange that ever-antiestablishment Anonymous wants to be honoured inside a circle of winners which includes Whole Foods, True Blood, “Action Wipes” and @greenmoms? We don’t know. The anarchist group par excellence doesn’t really fit in with a bunch of marketing shills. While it’s possible they’re being “ironic”, Anonymous doesn’t exactly trade in subtlety, typically telling foes to “suck d**ks”, “get f**ked” and other such suggestions. Doing it for the lulz isn’t compatible with parody.
The Shorties are also, strangely for Anon, sponsored by a bunch of companies — Pepsi, A&E and The Weather Channel are among them. Does Anonymous know the latter two are owned by ABC and NBC (respectively), two of their sworn big content foes? Do they care? With millions of followers and adherents across the world and the capacity to knock out websites belonging to the most powerful companies and government bodies in the world, what the hell do they want with an advertising award nobody’s ever heard of?
Original photo: Andrew H. Walker/Getty