R.I.P.: Adbusters

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Tue Oct 31 08:46:34 PST 2000


Chuck0:
> I guess this means that the only effective dialog with capitalism is a
> broken store window. It's amazing how the capitalist spectacle manages
> to find ways to "recuperate its opposition."
>
> Commercial Rebellion
> Advertising's voracious appetite for underground culture swallows
> another victim: culture jamming.
> http://www.metropolismag.com:80/new/oct_content/ent.htm

But advertising was always a method of domesticated, detoxified subversion, as part of capitalism. "All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned" and all that -- certainly advertising played its part, profaning the solid, sacred washtub with with visions of washing machines.

Culture jamming -- which began long ago with the now clicheed transgression of gender-code jerking by the drawing of elegant moustaches on improbably pretty poster girls -- is a way of _celebrating_, of _participating_ in advertising. One can hardly be surprised if the savvier early players adopt some of the moves of the second or third or ninth wave, or if the ninth wavers find themselves led by the nose. It all shows the great vitality of the art form; one will miss it when the circus goes down the tubes. Until then, I predict that the more vigorous culture-jammers will up the ante and the industry will respond in kind.

As for broken windows, if they became popular, would not businesses adopt pre-broken, Safetee-Smashed pseudo-broken plate glass?

You can't have a dialog with capitalism. It eats, it grows, and the more it grows the more it eats.



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