Unlucky Breaks

Travel is an area in which social media that use distributed networks can quickly broadcast consumer discontent with a company or agency. For example, in the Virtualpolitik book, I wrote about how multiple rich media or RSS-enabled sites on the Internet are used to express dissatisfaction with TSA passenger screening procedures. Airline horror stories can also be rapidly disseminated online, and even various memes involving the film Snakes on a Plane could be seen as part of the collective online mockery of norms involving air travel.

Now, according to "Smashed guitar, YouTube song — United is listening now" on a travel blog for the Los Angeles Times, the band Sons of Maxwell is combining free publicity for their music with anti-corporate revenge by releasing a YouTube video called "United Breaks Guitars," after baggage carriers for the airline damaged some of their musical instruments during a tour.

(Thanks to Brook Haley for the link!)