Effective protest signs
Jan. 21st, 2017 02:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stardreamer posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
thisfinecrewA linguist explains how to write protest signs that everyone will remember.
Words matter. Part of the reason Republicans have been so successful for the last half-century is that they seized control of the discourse. They turned "liberal" into a dirty word, and they've been trying to do the same thing with "progressive".
Going the other way, think about how the same-sex marriage movement took off when some genius reframed it from "gay marriage" to "marriage equality".
An effective protest sign will also be an effective T-shirt slogan, or bumper sticker, or tweet (or hashtag, if it's really short).
Remember also the slogan "Short is good. Funny is good. Short and funny is better." Because people remember funny stuff -- but don't let that stop you from writing a short, snappy angry sign either. One that I saw at the march in Houston today was "Grab them by the BALLOTS".
People will tell you that we can't win this war with soundbites. But that doesn't mean that soundbites aren't a useful tool! And you can be sure it's a tool the other side will be using.
Words matter. Part of the reason Republicans have been so successful for the last half-century is that they seized control of the discourse. They turned "liberal" into a dirty word, and they've been trying to do the same thing with "progressive".
Going the other way, think about how the same-sex marriage movement took off when some genius reframed it from "gay marriage" to "marriage equality".
An effective protest sign will also be an effective T-shirt slogan, or bumper sticker, or tweet (or hashtag, if it's really short).
Remember also the slogan "Short is good. Funny is good. Short and funny is better." Because people remember funny stuff -- but don't let that stop you from writing a short, snappy angry sign either. One that I saw at the march in Houston today was "Grab them by the BALLOTS".
People will tell you that we can't win this war with soundbites. But that doesn't mean that soundbites aren't a useful tool! And you can be sure it's a tool the other side will be using.
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