“Big Brother isn’t watching you”
In 2011 riots were happening all over the UK. These riots are also known as the “Blackberry riots”, because many of the riots were organized with this technology, such as the Blackberry smartphone.
In “Big Brother isn’t watching you”, Russell Brand criticise his native government, for not doing anything but complaining and shows a lot of sympathy towards his fellow countrymen, as he puts himself in their footsteps. Though he cannot see the meaning of this misbehaviour.

Russell Brand takes the reader through his point of view on the riots, from his youth in the Essex, where he grew up in a wealthy family, with a good heart, which makes him understand the hate of the rioters and their motives. Even though he is in Los Angeles, writing this article, he tells as if he were in the UK during these riots.

Russell Brand is a very well known stand-up comedian, actor, musician and author. The comedian part is very obvious throughout the text, as he uses a good amount of sarcasm and irony. His sarcastic tone is especially aimed towards the government, who, according to Russell Brand, does nothing to find a solution. “Wow! Thanks guys! What a wonderful use of planet’s fast-depleting oxygen resources. Now that’s been dealt with can we move on to more taxing matters such as whether or not Jack The Ripper was a ladies’ man. And what the hell do bears get up to in those woods?”
This was Russell Brands comment on the Home Secretary saying the behaviour was “unjustifiable” and unacceptable”.
The comment shows his attitude towards the government. How he feels they spend their time, doing nothing.

Even though the article is filled with sarcasm and irony, Russell Brand still uses a lot of harsh words. He knows what to say, to affect the reader. Which gets the reader more emotional and suddenly feel a part of the problem.
He is very good at getting his message out there. And with the way he writes, he hits people just enough for them, to take the information into consideration.

His strong opinions have a great effect on the reader, and together with the humour, it’s not hard to understand him, to know where he is going with this article.

Russell Brand does not understand the government way of handling these riots. It becomes very clear in his attitude, that it doesn’t make sense to him, that the government focuses to much on the fact that there is a problem, more than focusing on a solution to the problem. According to him, the government has too many excuses and complain too much.
Of course is not only the government, which is the problem. The rioters are the main course of all this. And their behaviour is “mindless”, as he says.
Even though, he sees their behaviour as “mindless”, he stills feel what they feel. Since he lived the life of a “bad boy”, doing drugs in his youth. Where he also found these protest exciting. And even though he can see how he was not the smartest of all back then, he says that there was this void inside him. A lack of direction, a sense that he was not invested in the dominant culture. But despite his “lack of direction”, his parents, who loved him, told him that he could be anything, that nothing was beyond his reach. Get an education and do something with his life and his future.
And that’s why he shows compassion on behalf of the rioters. Because he knows that not many of them, has the same privileges as he had, as a kid.

Russell Brand criticizes the UK government several times during the article. He blames the government, for the reason of these riots. As he says; These young people have no sense of community, because they haven’t been given one. If we don’t want our young people to tear apart our communities then don’t let people in power tear apart the values that hold our communities together.

And by quoting Ghandi: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
It makes sense that the rioters, want to make a difference. It’s not political it’s spiritual. The people want to see changes, so they make it themselves. They were being ignored and now they want to be seen and heard. And riots are apparently the way to do it.

In the article “Big Brother isn’t watching you”, Russell Brand wants to make a difference. He wants to create a focus on the actions the government took, in order to do something about the UK riots. He wants to create a debate, so that people would question the authorities, which hopefully would make the government realise what else needed to be done, and maybe do it different next time. If not even stop a “next time”.
Together with this and the Ghandi quote: “Be the change you want to see in the world”, his message is also to let you know, that even if you come from these communities where everything is hard, just work even harder and you will success. There is nothing beyond your reach.

Russell Brand is a part of a clean-up project, to which he donated his fee for the article “Big Brother isn’t watching you”.