Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Bubble Project

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. (non-admin closure) Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 22:10, 7 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Bubble Project

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Fails to meet WP:INDEPTH. An event must receive significant or in-depth coverage to be notable. No source, promotional content. 2simple (talk) 15:16, 16 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. MT Train^Talk 16:11, 16 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Advertising-related deletion discussions. – Lord Bolingbroke (talk) 16:52, 16 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to Ji Lee. Lacks sufficient coverage for stand-alone article. Schazjmd (talk) 20:17, 23 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That page should be deleted too. I struggle to see any encyclopedic value for successful crowdfunding and personal Facebook pages. 2simple (talk) 06:08, 26 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep (or Merge). I found several sources that could meet GNG, for example Wired online, De zeen, My Modern Met, and there was also a video segment on ABC News about the project (though I can't find a good link to it).--Mojo Hand (talk) 21:41, 23 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 12:51, 24 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 21:17, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.

Ferrell, Jeff; Hayward, Keith; Young, Jock (2008). Cultural Criminology: An Invitation. Los Angeles: SAGE Publishing. p. 114. ISBN 978-1-4129-3127-4. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
Hann, Michael (2005-09-30). "Please fill in the blanks ..." The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2020-06-01. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
Ahmed, Murad (2009-10-10). "The Bubble Project - Microtrends". The Times. Archived from the original on 2020-06-01. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
Fox, Killian (2006-07-22). "Say what you really think". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2020-06-01. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
Queenan, Joe (2006-10-02). "Rise of the bubble people". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2020-06-01. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
Chung, Ah-young (2014-10-20). "Korean-born artist challenges stereotypes". The Korea Times. Archived from the original on 2020-06-01. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
"Personal projects are key to dream job, says Facebook's creative 'rebel'". Agence France-Presse. 2016-07-01. Archived from the original on 2020-06-01. Retrieved 2020-06-01 – via Yahoo! News.

Sources with quotes

Ferrell, Jeff; Hayward, Keith; Young, Jock (2008). Cultural Criminology: An Invitation. Los Angeles: SAGE Publishing. p. 114. ISBN 978-1-4129-3127-4. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
The article notes:

The Bubble Project (www.thebubbleproject.com) is a form of guerrilla media whereby ex-advertising agency worker Ji Li (2006) and others paste empty, cartoon-style 'speech bubble' stickers over advertisments at bus stops and other public places. The empty speech bubbles invite passeers-by to fill them in with dialogue or critique, and once filled in the bubbles are photographed and archived. As its manifesto argues, 'the bubble project is the counterattack' and 'the bubbles are the ammunition' in a battle to take back public spaces — bus stops, train stations, subways, public squares — that have been 'seized by corporations to propagate their messages solely in the interest of profit'.
In this way The Bubble Project operates as a form of invitational vandalism — an act of illegal defacement that invites further defacement. A process of illicitly interactive street communication, The Bubble Project recalls the newspapers pasted to walls during the political upheavals of Paris 1968 — newspapers that eventually became 'difficult to read … so covered are they with critical comments' (Star, 2001: 66) — or more recently the work of the graffiti artist Banksy (2005: 50–5), whose illicit 'This Wall is a Designated Graffiti Area' stencils successfully invite further graffiti. The Bubble Project also recalls, once again, the concept of detournement, the 'theft of meaning', whereby activists subvert everyday messages by undermining their meaning. 'Once placed on ads', The Bubble Project argues, 'these stickers transform the corporate monologue into an open dialogue'.
Hann, Michael (2005-09-30). "Please fill in the blanks ..." The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2020-06-01. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
The article notes:

"Our communal spaces are being overrun with ads. Train stations, streets, squares, buses and subways now scream one message after another at us," writes the Seoul-born, New York-based artist Ji Lee in the manifesto that accompanies his Speech Bubble Project. So Ji Lee - a former designer for Saatchi & Saatchi, of all things - launched what he calls a "counter-attack".
He plodded the New York streets with 50,000 blank speech bubble stickers that he attached to advertisements. Then he waited for residents to add their own commentaries. The results - some of which can be seen on his website, Pleaseenjoy.com are a sometimes bizarre, sometimes trenchant commentary on life and consumerism in the US. As the manifesto puts it: "Once placed on ads, these stickers transform the corporate monologue into an open dialogue. They encourage anyone to fill them in with any form of self-expression, free from censorship." The resulting captions reveal the anger about the Iraq war and the Bush administration: political messages are dominant among those on the site. They also reveal an unexpected supplicant quality. "Please let me die in peace," begs ET from the basket of the airborne bike in the familiar image from the film. "Date me (please)," demands a corporate drone in an ad for Apple. Even Gollum, of Lord of the Rings, becomes a figure of sympathy: "Desperately seeking purpose," he pleads, in a poster for the movie.
Ahmed, Murad (2009-10-10). "The Bubble Project - Microtrends". The Times. Archived from the original on 2020-06-01. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
The article notes:

Advertising is a one-way conversation. Ji Lee, an artist, has decided to change that. "Train stations, streets, squares and buses scream one message after another at us," he writes on the Bubble Project website. "These spaces are increasingly being seized by corporations to propagate their messages." So he printed 50,000 speech bubbles and applied them to advertisements around the world. Passers-by fill in the bubbles with their own ideas. Lee photographed the results and posted them online.
Fox, Killian (2006-07-22). "Say what you really think". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2020-06-01. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
The article notes:

Human beings can't resist a blank space. It's a truth that Ji Lee was acutely aware of when he printed up almost 40,000 blank 'speech bubble' stickers and posted them on street ads around New York. Frustrated by how every last inch of public space was being invaded by 'bad advertising without any sense of humour or intelligence', ads 'that just scream at us and are not prepared to interact', Lee decided to take action. Almost overnight, the bubbles he placed next to the mouths of waifish young DKNY models and square-jawed matinee idols filled up with wry commentary, political slogans and uncomfortable truths of every description. 'The stickers create a dialogue rather than a monologue and often change the meaning of ads completely - they make them better.'
Queenan, Joe (2006-10-02). "Rise of the bubble people". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2020-06-01. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
The article notes:

Ji Lee is one of those people who cannot purge the advertising bee from his bonnet. An alumnus of the advertising world himself, Lee has devised something called the Bubble Project. It is an online site (Thebubbleproject.com) where ordinary people with no previous experience as dissidents can download bubbles, and then paste them up on posters or billboards they encounter in real life. The downloaders can fill in the bubbles themselves with their own clever or confrontational comments, or can leave them there for other people to write on. They are free to write things that are ingenious, seditious, disorienting, saucy, comical and even vulgar. This, says Lee, will allow the public to regain control of its environment, fight the corporate darkness, and just generally make life more fun.
Chung, Ah-young (2014-10-20). "Korean-born artist challenges stereotypes". The Korea Times. Archived from the original on 2020-06-01. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
The article notes:

Based in New York, he rose to international fame with the sensational "Bubble Project" in 2005, which prompted passersby's to write their thoughts on speech bubble-shaped stickers like in a comic book.
He placed 50,000 stickers on advertisements around the city and hundreds of people started to write comments on them, after a few months, media outlets started to pay attention and soon thousands of people around the world joined in.
He began the project as he resented adverts filling every corner of the street in an ugly and intrusive manner like "visual pollution." He worked at an ad agency at that time, and felt partially guilty for the "junk," and wanted to change the concept so that people could talk back to the adverts.
"Personal projects are key to dream job, says Facebook's creative 'rebel'". Agence France-Presse. 2016-07-01. Archived from the original on 2020-06-01. Retrieved 2020-06-01 – via Yahoo! News.
The article notes:

Lee, who was born in South Korea, raised in Brazil and now a longterm US resident, was able to break out of a dispiriting entry-level New York advertising job thanks to a quirky project he did on his own time and dime 15 years ago called The Bubble Project (www.thebubbleproject.com/).
That involved sticking blank cartoon speech balloons on New York advertising billboards that invited the public to write whatever they wanted.
Lee was fined several times for vandalism and given warnings from advertisers' lawyers. But the experience won him the attention of a boutique ad agency -- and then years later landed him a creative director job at Google.

There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow The Bubble Project to pass Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".

Cunard (talk) 07:08, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.