Louis Vuitton Versus The Internet

Luxury super brand Louis Vuitton recently won a court case against Danish artist Nadia Plesner. And certain, sometimes dangerous, parts of the Internet exploded.

The Story:

Nadia created a painting of a impoverished African child carrying a Louis Vuitton bag. The painting also featured Paris Hilton. Her objective was to draw attention to the atrocious situation in Darfur, and criticize materialism and consumerism.

LV took her to court, won $200,000, and she has reacted by keeping the image up on her website and letting the fine grow by leaps and bounds.

And Now …

Here’s what Anonymous, an amorphous group of digital(lulz) vigilantes who have taken on governments, large corporations and individuals have to say about this:

As of today morning, social news site and hub for digital activists of all colors reddit.com and the dark side of the internet 4chan.org seem to have taken this cause to heart.

Of course, it may not seem to matter because, as Redditor Arcturussage points out in a brilliant graphic, Redditors don’t seem to be LV’s target audience.

That said, what they’re doing is dangerously subversive and the impact on the luxury brand may well be far more severe.

And now that the great hivemind has decided that LV is EVIL with the vowels missing, the backlash is not going to go away even if the stupid lawyers who thought up the lawsuit are sent to purgatory, the brand withdraws the lawsuit, and apologizes to Nadia.

Lulz.

Recovered from the site’s WordPress archive, where it was published on 2011-03-12.