M.I.A.'s New Protest Tactic: Inciting Prank-Call Flash Mobs

M.I.A. is apparently not happy with the profile of her in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, in which Lynn Hirschberg engages in a pretty meticulous takedown of the pop provocateur’s cannily crafted image. (Sample line, in which M.I.A. is responding to criticisms that her overheated take on the Sri Lankan civil war is simplistic and damaging: “’I kind of want to be an outsider,’ she said, eating a truffle-flavored French fry.” There are also lots of descriptions of the clothing M.I.A. wears.) M.I.A.’s response to the profile: a Tweet containing a phone number and the message “CALL ME IF YOU WANNA TALK TO ME ABOUT THE N Y T TRUTH ISSUE, ill b taking calls all day bitches ;)” The winky? Is likely there because the posted phone number actually belongs to Hirschberg. This seems like a bit of a petulant stunt — not to mention something of a tacit admission that the piece maybe cut too close to the bone, no?