For a Prosperous Tomorrow

September 16, 2008 9:15 PM

Anarkon is a corporate collective comprised of the nations most innovative and forward thinking businesses, known internally as Affiliates. Our primary objective is to sell a long overdue revolution to the American public through an innovative branding and advertising campaign which will benefit today’s large corporations, the American economy and the consumer alike.
posted by streetdreams (29 comments total)

Sound starts right away - you have been warned.
posted by streetdreams at 9:16 PM on September 16, 2008

14 year olds agree: truly a masterpiece of groundbreaking and profound social commentary.
posted by nasreddin at 9:21 PM on September 16, 2008

The Revolution will not be televised!
It'll be sold to you on the internets!
posted by P.o.B. at 9:25 PM on September 16, 2008 [2 favorites]

Is it just me or are they selling something?
posted by philip-random at 9:27 PM on September 16, 2008

At last! A site where I can buy concert DVDs and...fake explosives?...from the Brotherhood of Nod!

...only there's no Kane.

::sniff::

This is ridiculous.
posted by lumensimus at 9:30 PM on September 16, 2008

No, philip-random, they're not selling anything, AFAICT.

After all the hoops one goes through (I wanted some dynamite delivered) they just give you this bullshit 'server error' message.
posted by pompomtom at 9:31 PM on September 16, 2008

My understanding is that Anarkon results in communist enlargement. Anarkon enlarges according to your needs... well you get the picture
posted by Rafaelloello at 9:32 PM on September 16, 2008

Wait -- actually, it looks like the Command and Conquer baddie is on the far left of this picture..
posted by lumensimus at 9:32 PM on September 16, 2008

A link to Whole Foods or the Obama campaign would have been just as effective. Er, I mean just the Whole Foods. *runs for cover* *oh noes, they're everywhere!*
posted by allen.spaulding at 9:34 PM on September 16, 2008

As much as I like satire...it's counterbalanced by my hatred of people who think that being a revolutionary is glamorous.
posted by Lemurrhea at 9:38 PM on September 16, 2008

WHOIS and Google reveal that it's one Carl Bender's Carl Bender's thesis project.
posted by lumensimus at 9:38 PM on September 16, 2008

(is there an echo in here? ;) )
posted by lumensimus at 9:39 PM on September 16, 2008

Great! Now we can just buy a revolution, that's so much more convenient.
posted by doctor_negative at 9:43 PM on September 16, 2008

Sounds more like Shadowrun than the Brotherhood of Nod.

And hey, except for the fact that no one found the century ferret, we're right on track for the Awakening in a few years. They might not have been exactly the disasters in the sourcebooks, but the new millennium certainly brought some disasters.
posted by Caduceus at 9:51 PM on September 16, 2008

I wish I posted this thread, but at least somebody smarter than me did. The mods won't get around to deleting it until they're done reading how the democrats started the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the previous FPP.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHA!

Bottom line(at least in my less-than-the-sharptest-tool-in-the-shed take):


1. Democrats caused this crisis, hence their reluctance to call any attention to it.
2. Republicans are uncomfortable with selling that Bush tried to stop this 5 years ago, because they don't want to be associated with him.


Bush did the right thing and will be remembered *much* later for doing it.
posted by Rafaelloello at 9:54 PM on September 16, 2008

Jeeze! Haters!
posted by serazin at 10:08 PM on September 16, 2008

Bottom line

From this point forward, your comment seems to be composed largely of English words assembled into complete sentences, and yet falls just shy of coherence.
posted by maxwelton at 10:11 PM on September 16, 2008 [3 favorites]

Looks like a pretty template and a Joomla demo. Is there more here? :/
posted by rokusan at 10:14 PM on September 16, 2008

I think this would make for a pretty intriguing ARG, actually. I don't even like ARGs, but if there were more to this -- if, for example, the WHOIS hadn't been so straightforward, or if the "customer service" number didn't lead to a phone sex line -- I would probably dig it.

As it stands, it's a way prettier project than I could make.
posted by lumensimus at 10:20 PM on September 16, 2008

meep
posted by blue_beetle at 10:46 PM on September 16, 2008

Cute... but a red and black color scheme? Really, I'd sort of hoped for a nice sterile white interface at least. Maybe some kind of friendly recommendation system ala Amazon.com:

It looks like you're building an arsenal. Of our users who buy The American Hero Crow Bar, 80% purchase it with a copy of Half-Life 2

I think the real irony here is that this "imaginative" selection of counter-culture tools pales in comparison to the wares offered by actual security sites. This site has a pretty standard sampling of what's out there. All it lacks is the high explosives really. Plus the prices are better.

Looking at the real thing again for a second, they're marketing towards fear instead of anger since that's been a winning strategy so far. Poking around on google for a bit, they seem to be selling items "to keep you safe" which has a nice ring to it, but these are also the place offering air tazers and night vision goggles, so there's some definite dissonance between the mentality they foster versus the reality of their products. Anyone who really needs those is likely putting themselves in harms way.

Quite simply, people who are outraged burn out and get tired of fighting the system, but spending absurd sums on security to protect against the specter of terrorists and the like has been a sustainable strategy so far. And see, it even works, because the people who buy into it haven't been attacked by terrorists! Better than that, it puts the heavy toys in the hands of society's more conservative elements, and they're the ones least likely to shake up a good business model.

Reality trumps satire on this one; the tools are out there if anyone wants them, but it's more profitable to just sell the image of revolution to those who will buy it and decouple it entirely from any requirement to take action. The consumer gets to feel good about their beliefs while simultaneously not being burdened by them. I mean, Che Guevara is having a pretty good second career in t-shirts and posters these days. If a revolution ever does happen, it will be waged with items raided from the Home and Garden Center of your local Super Walmart. Last I saw, Hot Topic doesn't have anything more substantial on their racks than a couple of belt buckles.

Considering everything that's gone down in the last 8 years, there's a whole new world of possibilities for satire here. Kind of a shame Anarkon just beats the dead horse of oh-I'm-so-edgy-by-pretending-to-sell-outrageous-things-online. :(
posted by CheshireCat at 11:06 PM on September 16, 2008 [1 favorite]

They'll be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
posted by dhartung at 11:24 PM on September 16, 2008

That site reminds me of this revolution site.
posted by BrnP84 at 11:29 PM on September 16, 2008

with this site in his portfolio, dude will definitely land the Shoney's web redesign contract.
posted by kickback at 12:59 AM on September 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

OK. So I'm old. I don't get it.
posted by From Bklyn at 2:55 AM on September 17, 2008

509 Bandwidth Exceeded. Like we didn't know THAT was going to happen.
posted by SPUTNIK at 5:12 AM on September 17, 2008

I lol'd.
posted by jessamyn at 6:07 AM on September 17, 2008

For us latecomers, can somebody describe what the heck this site actually was?
posted by scalefree at 9:21 AM on September 17, 2008

For us latecomers, can somebody describe what the heck this site actually was?

An overdesigned and tone-deaf 'parody' of capitalism. An anti-corporate art site.

It was pretty for about three clicks. Then it was boring.
posted by rokusan at 5:41 PM on September 17, 2008