My Tax Money Paid for That Bin.

Posted on by The Leisure Post

Mytaxmoneypaidforthatbin

The image depicted in this meme was spotted in Newtown, Sydney on a Sunday night in March. The poster is a remix of the Obama ‘hope poster’, which was displayed during the 2008 US presidential campaign to promote then presidential candidate, Barrack Obama. This poster depicts current Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, with text below reading “hopeless”.

This meme provides an example of ‘The medium is the message’ theory. The person responsible for this poster has chosen to use a public waste bin as a medium for which to promote a message of distaste about the political climate in Australia. The message implies that the government is “hopeless”, however the medium (the bin) indicates that we live in a society, which is governed productively enough that services such as bins and waste disposal are provided and maintained for use by the public.

The caption “My tax money paid for that bin” highlights the fact that the protester has used a medium provided by the government to promote the idea of “hopelessness” within the current government.

Click HERE to view the full link on Imgur.

5 thoughts on “My Tax Money Paid for That Bin.”

  1. Awesome opening post Eddie! The meme is an excellent entanglement with the medium is the message concept, and your explanation does very well to elaborate on that. We were just discussing with the other people teaching into BCM112 that the meme works so well you can even remove the text. But I think as it is its just great. Well done!

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  2. I think this is such a great post! It also greatly shows the way that media is converging. The fact that a meme is being used to display dismay towards politics, our prime minister to be exact, shows that we are better served by popular culture than by news or political discourse, as said by H. Jenkins in this weeks reading!

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  3. This is such a good Imgur Meme, including an explanation that allows a reader to fully understand “The medium is a Message” theory without using ‘big words’. Its simplicity and clarity makes it a lot easier for internationals (or ignorants) to understand the message even without having knowledge about the Australian politics. As McLuhan said noticing a change is the key and the author of this poster definitely did notice the potential of this simple waste bin. He has proved that the ‘medium’ creates and the ‘message’ is an effect.

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  4. Thanks for putting this meme up it has really helped me get my head around the medium is the message idea. Today I spotted a scene that reminded me of your meme. I’ve put it up on Twitter http://t.co/9Nt6j7dnmE . It has a Marxism poster placed on a recycling bin. Is it time to recycle Marxism?…

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  5. I looked back on this, and I was totally NOT clear on the overall concept of the medium is the message… and the fact that you actually took this photo and explained it rather than remixing a meme somehow made me understand it… first hand examples are clearly much better.

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