hating the players and the game

Artist Steve Lambert has created a brilliant new project called Why They Hate.US
As he describes it:

It's a participatory photo project using images submitted to Flickr. The home page is a single image chosen at random from uploaded photos tagged "whytheyhateus." The images aren't curated, edited, or censored. Anyone can contribute any image to the dialog and eventually every image will be shown in the random display.

Why they hate us is not a question. It is a statement, a response. But the question has been asked before and it's quite a loaded question. I mean, everyone knows that America is the richest, most powerful country in the world. Yet, the project's “about” link doesn’t explain much in the way of what exactly the question is asking or the ultimate meaning. The links section contains referrals to MoveOn.org and Democracy Now, two pro-deomocracy sites. The images that have been submitted so far run the gamut from very political to whimsical. Some are artifacts that belong in a time capsule about American culture while others belong in the history books.

Over at conservative HOT AIR, you can read a lot of interesting interpretations of the project, like it’s a parody or it’s a bunch of asshole liberals supporting Islam or some freak artist from San Francisco. I can just picture the brainwashed folks, wearing t-shirts that read, “They hate us because of our freedom!” to ward off evil doers. What they don’t understand is that this project isn’t censored or edited. It’s entirely up to the user’s imagination. I imagine once they catch on, the content will change, which is brilliant. It’s red state vs. blue state all over again, but this time with pictures! Which side is more patriotic? Which side is hijacking evolution and abortion and freedom? Which side is pro-Wal*Mart and globalization? The whole project is a mood thermometer, allowing everyone to chime and share their feelings through random photographs. Very democratic, isn't it?

Who is “they?” Is it the people in foreign lands? Is it ourselves? And who is “US?” Is it “U.S.” or “us” or somehow both? Could it be anyone who is exhausted by the botched war, the WMD lie, this government's blatant disregard for the law, wiretapping innocent citizens, torture and illegal detainment, and the brutal destruction of the environment? What does this project actually mean? Is the creator asking why the terrorists hate us (as George Bush asked Congress in 2001)? Or is it a more broad question aimed at understanding how U.S. policy has caused widespread anti-Americanism? By submitting photographs are we guessing or admitting?

It has hints of the Sorry Everybody project, but without limitations. It also reminds me of the study conducted by professors at Boston University called “The Next Generation’s Image of Americans,” which surveyed the opinions of 1,200 teenagers from countries around the world, asking them what they thought about Americans. The majority of kids thought that Americans are “militaristic and greedy.” The feeling that Americans do not have strong family values, are sexually immoral and that we want to invade their countries to change their cultures. They think we want to take over the world. What do you think? Why do they hate us?