Three years ago, lawyer Jordan van den Berg was an obscure TikTok creator who made videos that mocked real estate agents.
But today the 28-year-old is one of the most high-profile activists in Australia.
Posting under the moniker Purple Pingers, Mr van den Berg has been taking on the nation’s housing crisis by highlighting shocking renting conditions, poor behaviour from landlords, and what he calls government failures.
It is his vigilante-style approach - which includes helping people find vacant homes to squat in, and exposing bad rentals in a public database - that has won over a legion of fans.
Some have dubbed him the Robin Hood of renters.
“If this energy was directed to our MPs and senators, maybe there would be sufficient funding and resources to resolve public housing waitlists,” said a spokesperson for the Real Estate Institute of Australia.
This is the most aggravating part of the article for me. This will force policy change way faster than “putting that energy into pushing representatives.” Which is twice removed from the issue.
He’s helping people find shelter, AND he’s causing a huge stir, taking it worldwide, and making news. THIS is the type of direct action that we need.
Less incrementalism, more fucking over landlords and making the ownership class uncomfortable.
Bugging politicians can work, if you’re sufficiently relevant to re-election. This dude has achieved that relevance very well by doing what he’s doing.
Sure, but what this stupid fucking association of landlords or whatever is saying is that he needs to “work within the system.” They mean “write to your representatives, vote, donate to politicians, etc.” It’s complete horseshit. Because that clearly hasn’t worked. They don’t want it to work. These people lobby (read: bribe) to make sure the laws keep shifting in their favor. Which is exactly the point. Citizens trying to influence policy are very limited and removed a few steps from the actual decision making and decision makers. They want it to stay that way, because they get to write laws, lobby directly, spend face-to-face time with these people, call their cell phones because they’re large donors, and the winds are blowing ever harder in their favor. Their power grows exponentially while ours dwindles and we become exponentially LESS powerful as lawmakers become more and more insulated from the people they’re supposed to serve.
The quotes in here were indeed horseshit, but voting and donating (plus volunteering!), at least, work pretty well. I don’t want to pick a fight with you, but sometimes boring is good. Shit, even insurgencies get pretty paperwork-heavy at any kind of scale.
