Friday, April 10, 2009

Culture Jamming

I really liked the chapter on culture jamming and it's concept...Errin brought up the point that culture jamming is putting reality back in the place where unreality currently resides. It's amazing how readily we accept this "unreality" constantly from the media, and it's only when we see advertisements such as the ones from Adbusters that we truly realize how unrealistic these ideas and ads really are. The AdBusters website (adbusters.org) talks more about the aim of culture jamming and has links to all of their magazines, which are all pretty interesting. I also found this clip of the founder of AdBusters magazine on CNN talking about American consumerism and "Buy Nothing Day" instead of "Black Friday" like we discussed in class.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oPfVmkFgko

3 comments:

  1. There’s a film called Radical Jesters that is a really good example of a range of “culture jamming” activities that have happened over the last few years. You can see a trailer at
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnyZRYaRi-U
    The video can be seen and bought at
    http://www.radicaljesters.com/
    It’s really funny and pretty interesting.
    Enjoy!!!

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  2. The only thing wrong with "Buy Nothing Day" or similar days like this is people will just go the day before or the day after and buy it then. If society is wanting to stop days like these, it will take a lot more effort from a lot more people to stand up and say they won't tolerate this anymore. That being said I don't think it'll change. I admit it. I always say I will never do the Black Friday deals, but some are just too good to pass up and it pulls me in. Guilty as charged...

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  3. I think it's disgusting how unrealistic the media is and how us as consumer buy into all of it. I am guilty of it like everyone else, but I am not sure how to change it. I don't think shopping boycotts will work. It has to be a change of culture.

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