Protests, especially unpopular ones, can look like failures in the short-term. But evidence suggests that this isnāt necessarily a bad thing
As world leaders boarded their private jets home from Sharm El Sheikh, noticeably absent among them was youth activist Greta Thunberg, who in an interview before the conference accused world leaders and people in power of using the whole affair to grab attention, āusing many different types of greenwashing.ā
Reading her words, I couldnāt help but think about a group of protestors who last month grabbed the worldās attention in a more radical way than world leaders showing their faces at COP. Iām talking about SoupGate, MashedPotatoGate, and all the other protest actions that were sparked by Just Stop Oil protesters throwing a tin of tomato soup over Van Goghās sunflower painting in London.
In many respects the protest was a roaring success, generating international media coverage and making the front page of the New York Times. The video has been viewed almost 50 million times on Twitter alone.
