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I swear I'm not Apple-bashing!


atheisticmystic

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Almost one entire year ago, there was a thread about "underage" Chinese factory workers making Apple products, and I was inspired to write some song parody lyrics to the tune of Tennessee Ernie Ford's classic labor song, "16 Tons". Mike Filosa, Crew Chamberlain, and Tom Taylor encouraged me to do something with it, and it took me an entire fucking year to produce the music video for what is now the song parody "16 Yuan".

It's not about bashing Apple, it's about the conspicuous consumerism and colonialist attitudes that feed this side of that Chinese factory equation. Most of all it's a song parody, because I'm reasonably sure that's the most protected by law...lol.

Feel free to critique any part of the process if you have the time, and are so inclined,

Big thanks to Marc Wielage for his notes, and for this site being so inspiring.

Best regards,

Steven

(You can also watch on vimeo at: https://vimeo.com/56926828)

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Insanely great Steve. Really well executed on every level. I get so overwhelmed keeping up w the posts here at jwsound I an just now getting around to this thread. Wow. Wow again. Sharing for sure. As JB said, "Even-handed and on-target. Unlike some parodies whose message gets lost in the creativity, this one hits home." Thanks for the credit but all credit really belongs to you and your team who produced this. Outstanding.

CrewC

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Note that Tim Cook is about to move "some" Apple production to the U.S., so at least now, some of their low-paid, overworked factory employees will be Americans! :-

Not to derail this, but odds are the US production will be heavy with robots. Despite rumors, a lot of the iPhone is actually assembled by hand, or at least a few components that robots just don't get right. This is still a good thing, because even if the lines were 100% robots, there will still be US workers in the plant keeping everything humming along, as well as people maintaining the robots (skilled workers and not just punch press operators). They will be buying more supplies locally (expendable type things), plus paying local land taxes etc. Maybe one of the most significant things will be that they plant will be subject to US environmental regulations, as well as using US electricity (that is much cleaner to produce than power in China because of their lax emissions standards).

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Steven -

I just managed to catch this. I am so impacted I don't even know what to say. It is a magnificent piece of work, and I'll bet there was quite a bit of that involved too. Just the concept / art direction alone had to take a lot of time and effort.

The degree of compassion that fueled such an endeavor is most certainly felt here - and if you wanted to say and do something about "it", well you done did. The reality that it is indeed our imbedded consumerism (gotta have the latest greatest.... )

that drives this injustice is not lost.

Though the Apple / FoxConn thing probably brought such conditions to the general public light first, it is clear that there are many products and industries over for which this excellent work could apply. The people, AND their resources and environment, are being ruthlessly exploited by the monied & connected political elite. In a "classless society" no less....

(breath!)

How apropos given what is going on over RIGHT NOW in China - there is a very significant protest going on - for those that don't pay attention to the news - over censorship and freedom of the press (a newspaper called "The Southern Times" ! ) It's a wide-open thing now, started by young journalists and and now involving many Chinese entertainment stars that are participating (can you believe that? :)) ) via their version of Twitter - everyone at some level of risk and exposure.

The Chinese people, exposed to the internet are seeing the world through a fresher lens (albeit with some gov't controls). With a new and growing, capitalism-driven level of affluence, they are beginning now to seek different degrees and facets of freedoms that we completely take for granted. As much as I and many have warned, for 15 years, of the threats of job-killing, unbridled Chinese-American commerce, coupled with copyright and patent infringement, and significant industrial espionage (furthering the diminishing of American manufacturing power) - well, this has all lead to a completely out-of-whack balance of trade that, IMO, is not fixable.

However passive (or powerless?) on the above, we can be a little bit proud of our little-considered "primary export" -

the American concepts of freedom and the rights and privileges we do enjoy, at least in some capacity. (though diminished as of late)

And that is apparently now being consumed over there, and it's catchy, and it is going to be a very interesting year coming up....

I hope that your excellent piece makes it over there in some way, and I encourage you to go even one step further, and make a Chinese version (or at least subtitled) and figure out how to get it over there - the impact and the timing could be very very significant.

MF

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Thank you Crew, Mike, your comments are greatly appreciated, and it's very rewarding to hear that the content of the piece was impacting to you. I have a friend who just moved to work in the film industry in Beijing, and I'm waiting to see if he can get some translating for subtitles done for me

.

Wow. I'm impressed. Nice work. I see a million views in the future...

I'd be happy to make a tenth of what Obi-Marc's video has garnered!

Although I am thinking about donning a dress Python-style, and doing a rendition of Nancy Sinatra's classic "These Drones Were Made for Stalking".

:o

This site is an amazing place, and I thank you again.

Best,

Steven

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  • 2 weeks later...

And Mr. Deichen's video has apparently already had an effect! Here's a Washington Post story from a few days ago saying that Apple has just fired one of their suppliers for using underaged workers:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/apple-releases-accountability-report-discloses-it-has-found-underage-workers/2013/01/25/60b96c4a-6711-11e2-9e1b-07db1d2ccd5b_story.html

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