Modern Software Experience

2009-01-23

blogging power

Dutch blogs

The most popular Dutch blogs are not always best friends. They do at times ridicule and attack each other. So it is quite remarkable when all differences and petty feuds are set aside for a collective endeavour: fighting anti-evolution junk mail.

twitter

It started with this tweet by Bas Taart of weblog Retecool:

2009-01-30 03:32 Bas_Taart Zo.. Even het adres van Kees van Helden opgezocht. Weet ik waar ik die folders naar kan retourneren. Zonder postzegel.

Literal translation: So, just searched the address of Kees van Helden. Now I know where to return that booklet to. Without stamp..

Kees van Helden

Kees van Helden is a creationist who wants to spoil the celebration of the Darwin Year by flooding the Netherlands with 6,6 million anti-evolution pamphlets, to be delivered to every home. He has actively sought media attention by appearing on various TV shows that paid attention to the Darwin Year. He is quite deliberately a party pooper and proud of it.

Terug naar je Maker

Return to your maker

That tweet was just a funny thought, but that public message resulted in some private replies, and grew into a coordinated action of leading Dutch blogs to make everyone return the junk mail to its maker.

Today, they unveiled the website TerugNaarJeMaker (ReturnToYourMaker) and all published a call to action: return that pamphlet back to its maker, without postage.

Together, these blogs probably reach a few millions readers already. The media attention that is sure to follow in newspapers and TV, and the fact that it makes for great office watercooler talk ensures that practically everyone will hear about this playful response to the mass mailing.

reasons

The reasons for this action are manifold. Everyone hates junk mail and spam, and this time the address of the spam king is known, this time we can hit back. Many disagree with the message of the pamphlet. Many find an anti-Darwin pamphlet during the Darwin Year rather disrespectful. Many find the outdated anti-science attitude objectionable. Many object to the lies and deliberately misleading statements.

Many christians are ashamed about the short-sighted dogmatism of one of their own. Even dogmatic creationists are ashamed and do not endorse Kees van Helden; he still uses arguments that American lobbyist for creationism have rejected as arguments we don’t use.

The biggest reason of all, that even many who are just as dogmatic as Kees van Helden get behind, is that people hate the in-your-face pushiness of it all. Parents that are free of religion or have different beliefs are upset about the attempt to indoctrinate their children through the mailbox. People are demanding freedom of religion and religious propaganda in their own home.

blogs

The blogging action is perhaps a bit too coordinated; various blogs show little originality by posting nearly identical texts. There’s power in repetition and a unified voice, but anyone can copy & paste, and none of these blogs became popular by doing that.

GeenStijl gives one of its infamous binding recommendations, which often determine the winner of an internet polls, because many of its readers follow it loyally: just the pamphlet please, no bricks, pizza boxes, phone books or Pabo booklets.

Retecool remarks that this form of missionary compulsion, where believers follow you to your own doormat to try and evangelise you, should be suppressed as soon as possible.

Geen Commentaar points out that € 250.000 spend on the snail spam could have been spent on other things, such as protecting the rainforest or schoolbooks for developing countries.

postage

The idea of returning it without a stamp is significant. In principle, all post must be paid for, so if the sender does not put sufficient postage on it, the addressee will be asked to pay the postage and a surcharge.

reasons

There are two reasons that the action calls for sending the pamphlet back without postage. Most obviously, if people had to pay to return junk mail, most would not do so. The initiators want everyone to participate, so they do not want any barrier to that participation.

The real reason is that the action is all about annoying Kees van Helden by flooding him with his own junk mail. Anyone who receives insufficiently stamped mail may refuse it, the postal services will then return the mail to the sender to demand payment - if they know who the sender is. Kees van Helden can refuse all the return mail, but that is funny already: he will put in the position of having to refuse his own pamphlet over and over again.

consequences

The postal services will probably have a talk with Kees van Helden about it all. They are unlikely to refuse future religious spam. That is not a free speech issue. They just deliver for anyone who pays, as long as there’s profit to be made - and there’s the twist; If lots of religious spam has to be delivered twice, because everyone who objects to junk mail sends it back, the postal services will have to start charging the sender for high return rates.

Here’s hoping that this particular return to maker action will inspire many such actions, that returning junk mail becomes a matter of course. The resultant higher cost would certainly lead to a reduction of junk mail.

updates

2011-04-23: tweet deleted

Bas Taart's tweet has been deleted. The link now points to twitter instead of the tweet.

links

anti-evolution

action site

popular Dutch blogs

Copyright © Tamura Jones. All Rights reserved.