In contrast to the spraypainter, these fellow protestors aren’t attention-seeking performance artists. And look, they even have a sign identifying their organisation.* A more effective video than the one posted in the original article would have focused on them, making the headline “Grandmas and grandpas blockade posh London street for JustStopOil”. Apparently, the olds were too boring for the videographer, but watching an edgy dude spray paint a luxury car dealership before hamming it up without a script was more compelling. A corporate media outlet couldn’t have done a better job of distorting the demo.
[* Here’s a good heuristic for effective protests: the less work the target audience of your direct action has to do to find out what your org is and why you’re doing what you’re doing, the better. This is basic stuff, activism 101. If this action was about building awareness about the need to take substantive action on the climate emergency or the org, he did a crap job.]
