Agreed. But as someone who grew up with the Crying Indian, I am very wary of this kind of oversimplification. It was always, “make sure to cut the rings from the six pack of cans so the turtles don’t get stuck,” and not, “stop manufacturing death traps,” or, Primus forbid, “stop treating the ocean and waterways in general like free waste disposal.” It’s still being actively astroturfed to this day (see also plastic straws). Case in point: a few years ago there was an “accidental chemical waste discharge” into a tributary of a major regional river that is used as a water source for much of the area. This was posted about in a lightly trafficked regional subreddit where a “hot” post might accumulate a few dozen upvotes over the course of a day and a handful of comments. This one reached over a hundred comments within hours.
It’s only x gallons, the river moves y gallons every minute. Nobody would have noticed until the media made a big deal."
The same stuff is used in cosmetics and people put it on their face every day. It’s harmless.
And so on.
Messaging is important. The corporate class understands this. Hence trying to shift blame for every single systemic issue onto individuals. Plastic straws. You don’t have the right to swim in clean water. Plastic bags. Fuel efficiency. Overnight delivery. Vote with your wallet. Overproduction. Recycling. And now raking leaves.
Want all that in a single panel? Zoom out from the raked lawn and show the silhouette of a factory belching smoke into the air and vomiting waste into a river in the background.
It’s not just the leaves, it’s humans fucking with the environment, on a macro and micro scale. But that’s harder to convey in a single panel
Agreed. But as someone who grew up with the Crying Indian, I am very wary of this kind of oversimplification. It was always, “make sure to cut the rings from the six pack of cans so the turtles don’t get stuck,” and not, “stop manufacturing death traps,” or, Primus forbid, “stop treating the ocean and waterways in general like free waste disposal.” It’s still being actively astroturfed to this day (see also plastic straws). Case in point: a few years ago there was an “accidental chemical waste discharge” into a tributary of a major regional river that is used as a water source for much of the area. This was posted about in a lightly trafficked regional subreddit where a “hot” post might accumulate a few dozen upvotes over the course of a day and a handful of comments. This one reached over a hundred comments within hours.
And so on.
Messaging is important. The corporate class understands this. Hence trying to shift blame for every single systemic issue onto individuals. Plastic straws. You don’t have the right to swim in clean water. Plastic bags. Fuel efficiency. Overnight delivery. Vote with your wallet. Overproduction. Recycling. And now raking leaves.
Want all that in a single panel? Zoom out from the raked lawn and show the silhouette of a factory belching smoke into the air and vomiting waste into a river in the background.