Dan Phiffer builds websites, makes art, and teaches in NYCAn unflattering NY Times Magazine article on M.I.A. leads to a retaliatory tweeting of the journalist’s phone number (her response). Not quite the Streisand Effect, but similar. The retaliation might lend credibility to the claims in the article while increasing its visibility. A summary of the 8,000 word article is also available.
One revelation from the article was that having “Born Free” banned on YouTube was probably intentional — M.I.A.’s upcoming tour will be themed around censorship.
The article goes to great lengths picking apart M.I.A.’s outspoken politics, dismissing her ideas on Sri Lanka and other geo-political topics as naïve and ultimately self-serving. I appreciated this comment from MetaFilter user A Terrible Llama:
When it’s Madonna and it’s 1986, who cares, because she’s trotting out virgin/whore dichotomy or wearing cone-shaped bras and people are in a tither — fine. But when an artist is funneling additional attention into a complicated and easily misunderstood political situation they can be contributing to a kind of simplistic viewpoint that gets people killed.
