Chinese leader Mao Zedong's 1938 statement that "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" was true as far as it went- but it is important to understand that power, even tyrannical power, over ordinary people, can grow by investing and nurturing any form of power one happens to possess.

The Twitter hashtag #nbcfail, which became inextricably associated with the 2012 Olympic Games, was already being used at least two days before the Games started, when alert fans noticed that NBC's theoretically wonderful live multi-channel streaming of the sport would only be available to viewers with "a cable, satellite or telco TV subscription that includes MSNBC and CNBC" (and, in particular, was not offered as a special package deal or pay-per-view). By the end of opening day, 27 July 2012, many people found many other reasons to adopt the derogatory hashtag, and it remained in frequent use throughout the Games. Nonetheless, despite (or as some of the "all publicity is good publicity" persuasion might argue, because of) the continuing social media storm, the 2012 Olympics overall brought more viewers in the US than any other event, ever. As a direct result of that, they brought NBC both impressive revenues (30% up year-on-year, with a profit on the supposed "loss-leader" Olympic coverage) and huge promotional opportunities which seem to have paid off in the subsequent TV season.

And that is the nature of this particular tyranny. NBC was able to use its expensive monopoly agreement with the International Olympic Committee in any way it saw fit, and made the most of it for its own benefit. #nbcfail and #nbcconquest are tags for exactly the same series of events. Due to problems with Google Drive, I have given some of my webspace for Mark Snow's detailed analysis of the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony and cultural presentation, "... By strange conveyance ...", which contains various sections studying the ways NBC used its monopoly power at the very start of the Olympics on 27 July 2012, to its own ultimate advantage but to the disadvantage of ordinary American citizens (who, judging from online reactions, seem on average to have derived significantly less enjoyment from the show than viewers in other nations). Not only was the event time-delayed (this is unlikely to happen for Rio in 2016, unless the Brazilians try to start their Opening before European midnight) and riddled with commercial breaks; NBC also imposed its own ideas over the intentions of the London organisers, both positively in the commentary by Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira and Bob Costas, and negatively in its omissions of material.

Here, under the copyright arrangements stipulated for Mark's study (see end of page; if any right-holder of material quoted by Mark objects to my use of it, I will of course remove it from this page), I have collected his main #nbcfail items together (with his additions to 19 March 2013):