Text: Digital Organising for Housing Justice. FWD+Organise 2024 Round Up by the Commons Library. Includes a photograph of Jordan Van Dem Lamb (@PurplePingers).

The Purple Pingers Guide to Digital Organising

By

Introduction

Jordan Van Den Lamb (aka @PurplePingers) presented at FWD+Organise 2024.

Jordan introduced himself: “I hate real estate agents, make videos on TikTok and sometimes I argue with conservative people.” In fact, his housing activism has played an important part in highlighting the injustice of the housing crisis, empowering renters and agitating landlords, real estate agents and politicians.

@PurplePingers has over 200,000 followers on TikTok and you can follow him on You Tube, Instagram, and other platforms. He also maintains the ShitRentals.org website:

“This website is about giving power back to renters. As a renter, landlords and real estate agents have access to so much information about you, but you don’t get that same level of transparency from them.

Real estate agents often provide photos of properties that are years out of date, and don’t tell you what it’s like to actually live there. You don’t get to enter into a new rental knowing how difficult it might be for you to request basic repairs to be completed.

This website is here to help. It will always be free, and there will be no ability for landlords or real estate agents to pay for reviews to be removed.

Do your part to help your fellow renters by writing an anonymous review of your rental property or real estate agency.”

@PurplePingers also maintains a database of empty homes available to be squatted. People can submit empty homes via this form.

The following notes are based on Jordan Van Den Lamb’s slides from the FWD+Organise 2024 conference in December 2024.

My Strategy


Use the skills available to you to help people experiencing that particular crisis of capitalism.

  • Choose a crisis of capitalism (any one, there’s heaps to choose from)
  • Talk about it and draw attention to it
  • Encourage others to talk about it
  • Provide a platform for others to use
  • Tell people they accidentally did collective action
  • Revolution?

What’s Worked for Me

Try be funny (but not too funny)

  • People already know that the situation they’re in is bad and that their material conditions are worsening. They don’t want your pity, they want someone who can empathise with them and laugh at how ridiculous this situation is.

You don’t have to be nice to people that want others to suffer (it’s actually good if you aren’t)

  • It’s okay to bully politicians doing a bad job
  • It’s okay to be “uncivil” towards bad faith actors

Some More Stuff that’s Worked for Me

It’s important to tell the story through others’ experiences

  • People don’t want you to preach at them and list statistics, that’s how we got into this mess. Let them tell the story in a way that is safe.

Anger can sometimes be a stronger motivator than hope

  • It’s important to never lose sight of hope, but a message of hope rarely motivates people with little to lose.
  • People are like, really mad at the moment – and helping others is an incredibly effective outlet.

In Conclusion

Thanks to capitalism, we don’t have the time or resources to organise in the ways we previously did.

  • As a result, it’s important that we give people the tools to help them organise in a way that lets people get involved regardless of how great or little their capacity is.
  • Join your union, join the Renters and Housing Union.

Explore Further

Share Resource

Share on LinkedIn

Topics:

    Tags:

    Format:


      image Attribution-NonCommercial CC BY-NC

      Contact a Commons librarian if you would like to connect with the author

      Topics