Strength in (digital) numbers

People have been banding together around causes they passionately believe in for a long time, right?


Massive change has never been affected at the scale and speed at which it can be today, though. The availability and democratization of web applications has made it easier to rally around a conviction, efficiently prove a point and prompt a kind of domino word-of-mouth effect than before. One example that has been bouncing all over the place has been the heartwarming story of David Armano trying to help a family in need. I first found out about it through Faris:


David wanted to try raising $5,000. Well, in under 24 hours, donations were up to over $12,000. Wow. See what I mean? He blogged about this sweeping gesture of generosity here.

Here's another:


This one's personally relevant. For those who may not know, JPG is a photography magazine. It has a tightly knit online network of almost 200,000 people who submit and share their photos on JPGMag.com. The people on there favor a democratic view of photography over a pretentious one – there's peer commenting, voting and sharing of constructive criticism. This community extends into the magazine in a cool crowd source-y way, too: members’ photographs are chosen and published in its six annual issues.

Anyway, now the bad news happens. I got an email on January 2nd from JPG with the sad news that they'd be shutting their doors – ceasing production of the paper magazine and taking down the web site. As with many arts-based things today, they had been facing some money troubles for a while. JPG thought that they had tried everything, like seeking out potential investors and buyers. What they didn’t realize at the time was that their biggest strength lay in what sourced their content in the first place: the people.


[photo from striatic]
Almost immediately upon hearing the news, those who saw a family in JPG rallied together to fight its death. Among countless blog, Twitter and Flickr posts, SaveJPG.com was born, soliciting personal stories about people’s relationship with the magazine.

And now the good news! In a few days, a single post got over 700 comments (one of my favorites had the line "JPG is my big school of photography"), including how much people would be willing to pay annually just to keep the community alive. This outpouring of support was noticed almost as quickly as it started: JPG sent a follow up email a few days later with this line in it:

Because of you, we have multiple credible buyers interested in giving JPG a home.

So, while those hundreds (thousands?) of JPG members & fans didn’t directly bring back the magazine, their (very) fast and powerful collective influence probably perked the ears of potential investors who might otherwise have overlooked a tiny arts publication before it was too late. Warm fuzzies.


One final thing: last night I read the most glorious words: Smile! Polaroid is saved. I don't know if the THOUUUUUSANDS of people all over the world posting online, making web sites and signing petitions did anything to influence the Austrian photographer (who decided to pay for production of film for Polaroid cameras), but I sure am thrilled he decided to do it. I don't know if this is quite related to what I've been talking about, because this change didn't happen overnight, like the David Armano and JPG miracles (hell, this took nearly a year). But the scale – the fighting on our part – was the same. So, half related (and fully happy).

Please don't, Polaroid.

Those who know me know that I love taking photos. I love it. I am currently involved in six photography projects. One involves taking photos of food for a new trivia section in Mental Floss called Dietribes (for this I have used my Nokia N95 8GB's camera). One is for a global project organized by a new friend in Alberta that utilizes disposable Kodak cameras. One is a photo-a-day type of thing with my friend Ken in Richmond, VA (again the N95 8GB). One is fotoprojekt, which I slacked on for a long time but am picking up again (I use my Minolta Xg for this, mostly).

The final two photo projects involve the Polaroid I got when I was in 9th grade: a postcard exchange with a friend in California, and a ten-item Polaroid scavenger hunt with my pen pal in Quebec. Seeing a little square image with my address written on the white part with a Sharpie is so, so nice to come home to among the sea of long skinny rectangular envelopes with clear plastic address windows.

(I also go out with my Holga on occasion, even though most of those rolls of film come out black. I am not a very good photographer, I just enjoy it to no end.)


Anyway, my point is that I am sad. I just now read this terribly sad NYTimes piece on the end of Polaroid as we know it.

Polaroid Corp. is dropping the technology it pioneered long before digital photography rendered instant film obsolete to all but a few nostalgia buffs.

Polaroid is closing factories in Massachusetts, Mexico and the Netherlands and cutting 450 jobs as the brand synonymous with instant images focuses on ventures such as a portable printer for images from cell phones and Polaroid-branded digital cameras, televisions and DVD players.

Now, I'm sure they are sad too. I'm sure they thought long and hard before doing this. I'm sure that they weren't making as much money as they potentially could have. But now hundreds people are out of a job and thousands (hundreds of thousands?) are out of a simple technology that has brought so much joy in the past. All but a few nostalgia buffs? It can't be. I kind of refuse to believe that. I think there are many more than "a few" of us who feel a connection to and affection towards Polaroids. I want there to be a global survey measuring people's love of the memories, symbol of spontaneous fun and aesthetic of Polaroid photos (I never said I wasn't idealistic and unrealistic at times).


I am not going to pretend to know about Polaroid's revenue, lack thereof, projections, metrics or any other money and numbers-related things. But the equity that they have just based on the name... I mean, look at what happens when you simply type "polaroid" into Amazon. I have been out with friends before and heard them gasp when coming across a book of Polaroids at bookstores, no matter the topic of the photos.


Is there anything we can do? One of the examples I didn't mention about Clay Shirky's talk last week dealt with a real estate professional who was SO ANGRY because of the state of our airline industry that she singlehandedly put together the online petition that led to the Passenger Bill of Rights. I am pretty sure that there are enough people passionate enough about this technology to do something similar. I don't know how to go about that. Anybody? I don't know. The jobs have already been cut and the factories are probably half closed by now.


No, I know that the world isn't over. I know that there are far worse problems out there (Far worse. I know. Thinking about them makes me feel silly for even writing this). And yes, I read in that article that Fujifilm will continue to produce instant film. Does it look the same? I have no clue. I'll have to find out, I guess. I am still sad.

EDIT | Being the twit that I am, I managed to miss this very important sentence in the article: "Meanwhile, Polaroid is seeking a partner to acquire licensing rights for its instant film, in hopes that another firm will continue making the film to supply Polaroid enthusiasts."