Download PDF Version Revolt Magazine, Volume 1 Issue No.4

THE
R LIST
Social Activism in fancy Tones
On how celebrities engage to improve contemporary society
BY LAURENCE HOFFMANN
Promoting oneself is commonly accepted, if not
practiced, by people in all strata of society. Individuals
are more and more managing themselves as
brands, a trend put in motion by social media like
Facebook and Twitter, that heightens the need to
make an original mark in a world over-crowded with
competing information. On the business side this
applies to advertisements, which effectively use
celebrities to create instant familiarity through the
immediate recognition of a particular celebrity’s
brand.
Recently self-branding has taken a new turn as
more popular figures have applied their massmarket
appeal to serious social issues. A cursory
list of examples includes Mark Ruffalo and Yoko
Ono with son Sean Lennon opposing fracking
with Artists Against Fracking; Joaquin Phoenix
defending the rights of people and animals together
with -respectively- Amnesty International and
Peta; Leonardo Di Caprio trying to prevent total
degradation of the environment with Live Earth
and Wildlife Conservation Society; Ziggy Marley,
Lady Gaga, Linkin’ Park, BBKing and others making
efforts to bring music education into disadvantaged
public schools with Little Kids Rock; George Clooney
is one of the United Nations Messengers Of Peace
and together with Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don
Cheadle and others has founded Not On Our Watch
to condemn the violations of human rights in Darfur,
Burma, and Zimbabwe; Angelina Jolie is Special
Envoy for the United Nations. These are just a few
of the causes in which some of the most prominent
American stars emerge as “social activists” and in
some cases as “social entrepreneurs”.
For his activities (other than being Walden Smith in
Two and a Half Men and occasionally appearing on
the cover of magazines with old and new flames)
Ashton Kutcher can be considered a “social
entrepreneur”. The business activities of his
company A-Grade are geared towards improvements
in contemporary society.At TechCrunch, an event
that focuses on start-up companies keen to enter
the field of technology development and new media
held in April/May in NYC, Ashton Kutcher explained
the criteria behind the investments of A-Grade and
revealed his critical take on corporations.
Ashton Kutcher, Guy Oseary, and Michael Arrington, TechCrunch Disrupt NYC 2013, video stills. Courtesy of Laurence Hoffmann.
With his notorious sardonic language typical to an
“agent provocateur”, he decries the concept of
Big Brother. He warns that societies should prefer
the decentralization of the security system instead
of accepting that one major entity controls the
masses. Ashton proposes that security should be
based on the interaction among individuals. This
critical approach defines an optimistic point of view
on local communities built by the genuine personal
relationships between people. Such conviction
For his eclectic interests and activities, Ashton
belongs -together with all socio-politically engaged
celebrities- to that figure so much in vogue in the
Renaissance, “the Renaissance Man”. In the 15th
and 16th Centuries the reevaluation of the models
from Antiquity took an important step. Artists
and philosophers were called to court (royalty,
aristocracy or new bourgeoisie) to engage into the
political discourse and became spokes persons,
aka ambassadors. What made them “Renaissance
implies a strong criticism towards the general Men” was their versatility in various fields of culture,
opinion that our western (and newly BRIC) societies science, politics and the conviction that societies
are tending towards a more anonymous global could harmonically entail all these aspects. These
system.
societies were literally called Utopia, a term that
today has taken on the connotation of “illusionary
On the practical business level, Ashton focuses and unrealistic”.
on financially supporting and strengthening
technological platforms that enhance social sharing. This lead to an open conclusion: Is social activism
And since interconnectivity is fundamentally an in all its forms a sheer idealistic endeavor or can
element of mutual trust, it is especially through
social media that a stronger connection between
the contribution of mass mediated personae really
reach the masses and help make the change?
individuals can be achieved and local communities
are therefore spontaneously formed.
REVOLT
Magazine Number 4, 2013
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