Gaming the Games, Shaming Beijing

The Sydney Morning Heralds reports on How activists have hijacked the symbols of the Olympic Games and used them to shame China.

Great coverage of our recently released Torch Relay Animation Parody:

A similarly edgy animation is being promoted by Students for a Free Tibet on its parody of the official Torch Relay site. The animation, a hack of the official Torch Relay logo, can be downloaded and used as a “badge” on blogs and websites, ensuring that it will spread virally across the internet. The official logo is static and depicts two characters running, holding aloft a flame in the stylised shape of a phoenix, the mythical creature that in Chinese culture symbolises high virtue and grace and is supposed to appear only during periods of peace and prosperity.

However, in the Students for a Free Tibet version, one of the characters pulls on a policeman’s cap, the torch becomes a truncheon and the other character is beaten senseless until it collapses and blood spills down over the Olympic rings. The online flash video mocks China’s torch relay logo and slogan “Light the Passion, Share the Dream” in an attempt to expose China’s cynical Olympics propaganda, the SFT website says.