What a joke...
Written: Nov 11 '00 (Updated Mar 03 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: --none--
Cons: superficial, blatant propaganda
The Bottom Line: Like anything, its worth looking at to know about. But if you take its aims seriously, please think of a more constructive way to accomplish them.
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| WideAngle's Full Review: Adbusters Magazine |
I've been following Adbusters since 1998, before anyone really knew or cared about it, when it was funny and satirical. When it might have accomplished something.
It's gone down hill ever since. Way down hill.
72% of the U.S. population believes that corporations have too much control, and I agree—the world is, by and large, over commercialized. It's as if a corporate logo accompanies EVERYTHING possible, ranging from the names of stadiums to the injury reports covered in the broadcasts of the sporting events taking place in those stadiums. Ridiculous!
There needs to be some reasonable approach to staving off corporate domination. I suggest reading Jelly Helms's column from the Communication Arts 1999 Advertising Annual for starters.
Yet Adbuster's techniques are highly suspect, and not at all in line with the heavily moralizing tone they spit out from issue to issue. What the magazine's editors and followers seem to forget is that a democracy is "rule by the people" and NOT, repeat NOT, "rule by the activists." And for all the lip-service paid to "power to the people" rants, the publication hardly ever achieves this sort of inclusive, reasonable approach they complain is being taken from us.
The fundamental problem with Adbusters is that it wants to define what happiness should be and what things have meaning and what things do not. One of the pillars of freedom in the U.S. is your right to the "pursuit of happiness." Note that "happiness" is not spelled out for you, it is not given a convenient definition; it's been left open because, well, that's what freedom IS. For a friend of mine, happiness is driving an expensive car, living in a lavishly designed house, and wearing designer clothes. For another friend, he prefers making posters and finding the hidden treasures at thrift stores. Isn't it great that both of these people can pursue whatever paths they want? If I were to say that one version is better than the other, it'd be akin to declaring the color red superior to the color blue! Absurd, right? Right. Adbusters tells you that working in advertising or buying designer clothes or getting your coffee from Starbucks isn't going to make you happy. Okay, I agree. But that's just for me. For some people, it very well might make them happy—and who are any of us to judge that?
The same goes for meaning. Finding meaning in something is a personal activity, and simply should not be regulated or legislated. This is a basic civil liberty at the very least, and really should not require an ounce of explanation. What you derive meaning from is not going to be the same for someone else. Period. And to say that it should be is a banal form of mind control, excessively authoritarian and highly disturbing. Sure, consumption probably isn't very "meaningful" to most people, but then again, maybe it is. The beauty of our society is that you CAN buy things if you so desire, and if you choose not to buy much of anything, that's fine too. Either way, over-consumption has some potential hazards attached to it, and being a responsible consumer is the smart thing to do. And there's a way to educate and a way to alienate.
Some people are so entrenched in and so enthralled with their moral views that they feel a need to force it on others. When its something unattractive, like Fundamentalist Christianity or White Supremacy, most people recoil and criticize the actions taken by followers of such ideologies. Adbusters isn't much different in their techniques, even if the values are wildly different. We live in a society where morals are, for the most part, kept out of the laws—thus a free society. If you live under a government that has rules on what you can feel, think, and desire, there probably aren't any elections and there's probably a large population of people in camps with barbed wire.
While Adbusters criticizes "corporate homogenization," they do little more than promote another form of "sameness." In addition to blasting their puritanical, self-righteous ideology on their magazine pages, they have plans to conquer the corporate controlled media outlets and broadcast THEIR views for THEIR version of a better life. Am I the only one who has a problem with mob rule, especially when that mob espouse politics to the left of 98% of the people in this nation? Now that the magazine has endorsed Anarchy as a desirable political format, and approves of and encourages vandalism against corporate objects & places of business, I'm beginning to question whatever intelligence once existed in this thing.
Of course, there's more stupidity where that came from and I highly doubt that the editors will EVER see this. The "brands" that Adbusters so vehemently oppose are the ones we all already know—the Shell Oils, the McDonald's (which even the highest ranking activists admit is not a problematic company. They just attack it to get visibility!), the Starbuck's, the Coca Cola's. Don't they realize? We KNOW where these companies reside, we know exactly what they're doing simply because they're so large and so visible. Its the smaller, less-publicized organizations that we need to be aware of. Of course, there's no glory in THAT. Just remember--any big brand is probably publicly owned, and therefore, just about anything you want to find out about them, you probably can. So what's the point in dedicating a magazine to their destruction? We'll end up with a world of invisible companies that aren't legislated or tracked...now that'd be deadly.
We're in a time where calling yourself an "activist" is a cool thing to do though. Like the rest of us peons should stare at an "activist" in awe of his or her moral balance and superior knowledge. Ostensibly, Adbusters is very concerned about the environment and bases all of its actions on writings on the threat to the planet. Unfortunately the scientific research they use lacks contemporary validity; when criticizing drug companies (basically, for "inventing" chemical depression to sell more Prozac), they cited information from 20 years ago. Information that has recently been scientifically refuted. Just as people warned against global cooling in the 1970s, they worry about global warming now—both are valid issues, but need to be addressed by SCIENCE.
Instead of proposing scientific solutions to specific problems, Adbusters advocates making a poster about it. Posters that sell ideas, because in their minds, political ideas are "more valuable" than ads for shoes or sunglasses. Logically speaking, that means posters espousing the extermination of non-Aryans have equal value to posters promoting extreme leftist ideas. At least in advertising, products can be qualitatively superior to others in the same class. What's so immoral about making a BMW out to be better than a Ford Taurus? One of those things that goes without saying.
Adbusters does absolutely nothing more than preach to the converted. As a designer myself, I'm not particularly moved by some tirade by the magazine's editor comparing corporate designers advertisers to prostitutes. I can't imagine your average consumer finding delight in being called an immoral, destructive fiend. If anything, the increased voracity of Adbusters' tone demonstrates its failure to do anything postive. Their "join us or die (or be "morally inferior")" mentality has little if any purpose. Don't be fooled by this publication. Think about the two anti-smoking campaigns from the past year. On one side, there were cheesy animated commercials portraying smokers as anti-social, disgusting, inhuman beasts with no redeeming traits. The other, known as "The Truth" campaign, recited COLD FACTS about smoking—spots featuring the exploding soda can and combustible shoes (cigarettes are the only products that kill 33% of their users). Guess which one was more effective. If Adbusters would outline a coherent solution backed by CURRENT research, and ditch the moralizing, authoritarian, puritanical tone more people might be inclined to listen. But until it stops making its followers feel really good about themselves while alienating the masses they need to accomplish an already hazy objective, why bother taking it seriously?
Recommended:
No
Primary Reason for Buying: Editorials/Social Commentary
Describe the magazine's political views: It is liberal.
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Epinions.com ID:
WideAngle
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Location: Atlanta, GA
Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 36 members
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