Face it, even the happiest mutants often feel defined not so much by what they think or do, but rather by what brand of product they choose to buy. At one time, brands were used to identify' products, but now it's the consumers who are branded as labels, which have moved from the inside of garments to the outside and ail over the person, literally from head to toe. Trying to "kick" the brand name habit won't help. It only leads to another line of "clear." "lite," or "simple" products, new consumer frontiers for the herd to orbit.
No, the answer isn't avoiding brand names, it's developing your own "personal brand name."
The four-page article promotes a mix of tagging (slapping stickers on things), and branding anything and everything ("mugs, calendars, pencils, fobs, even wristwatches with 'your logo here' are cheaply had"), to using official-looking letterhead and business cards to acquire "free and bizarre catalogs and trade publications you never knew existed" , and even registering "all forms of bizarre complaints and 'leveraged warnings' to corporate thugs and elected officials!"
25 years later, this message is no less accurate, and if anything, the barrier to creating a new brand is even lower. Heck, make an appealing enough brand, and people will pay to spread your message! Slap together something eye-catching, post it on Redbubble or another print-on-demand site, and you might even make a bit of money back when people latch on to your message!
(If you're more keen to eschew the corporate landscape as much as possible, anti-corporate organizations like Adbusters [Wikipedia; official site] might be more your scene.)
And a final note: while you can use personal brand names to reclaim a small swathe of commercial space, be warned that your brand may outlive you, or get you junk mail that's no fun at all. It's a small price to pay for "saving your mutant soul."
No comments:
Post a Comment