Banyan Branch

I love underdog triumph stories. Patriotism in any form causes an immediate lump in the throat. I’m mostly likely to cry during a sports movie. I’m a sucker for all things “Common Man”, “Everyday Hero”, and grassroots social action so naturally when I saw Boing-Boing’s post about this “complaint choir” from Japan I couldn’t help but be moved.

I may just be behind the times, but up until today I had not heard about Complaint Choirs. Apparently, this is a world-wide phenomenon that has been occurring for the past 5 years or so, and features groups of individuals getting together and singing about things that get them down. Though the languages range from Finnish to Japanese and everything in between the complaints are strikingly similar, a fact underscoring how very similar people can be despite their cultures, ages, or locations.

Interested in starting a choir in your own city? Visit complaintschoir.org to get started. The use of social networking and the internet to create these Complaints Choir groups, as well as the spread of their videos over YouTube is a perfect example of the beautiful ways that social networking technology can bring people together, and how they help highlight the underlying humanity in us all.

-Emily at Banyan Branch