The Future
Netizens
Campaign Design • Print Design
Web Design • 2022
The Future Netizens campaign was born out of a question: how can GenZ repair our relationship with the future? After doing my own research and talking with other Gen-Z members, I came to understand that our feelings about the future, and why at times we feel overwhelmed, is in large part due to the internet, social media, and our phones in general. While this seems logical, isn't it a little odd, or at least discouraging, that the Internet is partially responsible for our collective existential dread? That's certainly not what was intended when the World Wide Web launched in 1989.
So this got me to think about digital experiences, and how the vast majority of them are governed by different algorithms designed to encourage maximum
user engagement, and turn a huge profit for the companies implementing them, whatever the cost may be to truth, to community, to hope.
Future Netizens believe it’s possible to use the internet for information’s sake, to educate us, and be an amazing, un-monetized resource. Through leveraging our data labor, which is the digital trail left behind by any online activity or accounts, we can begin to demand change. And it’s worth leveraging our data
to get there.
Data Levers
Instruction Manual
The Data Levers Instruction Manual is the first component of the Future Netizens campaign. This manual is an informational zine focused on educating young people on the current state of the internet, (how the default mode of being online is dependent on surveillance and pigeon-holes users/the content they’re exposed to,) and how we can combat it with data levers. It also details each type of data lever. The content is divided into an informational section, followed by a more personal, manifesto-based one. Through adopting digital aesthetics and a contemporary design language, this zine aims to take the reader out of the normal circumstances where they think about the Internet and push them to consider it in a different light.
It is imperative that this is a printed piece. So often the news we get about Big Tech, or when we think about the state of the virtual world, is when we’re online. I wanted to create something that is about the internet and references those aesthetics, but have the information be something analogue and tactical that fits in one’s hands. The printed information cannot be altered, or clickbaited, or made impossible to read due to the ads, animations, or additional content that may be surrounding it.
This zine is part instruction manual, part manifesto, and feels like the next evolution of protest. I wanted the distribution methods to reflect that. The
Data Levers Instruction Manual is now for sale in a few of my favorite local, independent book and record stores (not corporations) in San Francisco that
are long-time ambassadors of the “consciousness/individual autonomy” this project encourages.
FutureNetizens.com
As the Data Levers Instruction Manual was further developed, it became clear that the printed piece would need its digital counterpart. I created futurenetizens.com, a live website with live links, for all of the digital alternatives to Big Tech platforms and search engines that are recommended in the zine.
This site was an archive of actual data leverage resources (everything from VPNs and AdBlockers to alternative search engines or ways to pirate media,) and it was the metaphorical start of carving out that type of online experience the Future Netizens are visualizing. The website featured a data levers definition page, a page for each type of data lever and their respective resources, and an
about/join page.
Meme Posters
The further I went with this project, the more interested I became in exploring typical activist/protest design work and shaping it to fit these modern needs. One of those streams that felt very natural was good old fashioned
wheat pasting.
How could I bring a primarily digital visual language out into the world? Memes. As a young person, I love memes, and while they are often hilarious and stupid, they can also be a profound tool for critique/provoking thought. They also are an appropriate choice for GenZ, my target audience. So I created a selection of memes; one to critique the current status of big tech, and the other to promote and peak intrigue in data levers, all encouraging viewers to visit futurenetizens.com, and wheat pasted them in neighborhoods around San Francisco.
