Toxic Legacies / Filtering the Truth

Using humour or irony as a tool for communication is obviously
not new. One organisation that includes this in their
rhetorical protest is the activist magazine named Adbusters.
The network consists of artists and activists that create a
bi-monthly magazine and a series of campaigns and ads –
addressing issues regarding our current environmental, political
and social structures. Adbusters is known for their parodic
“subvertisements” that seek to reveal the “true logic”
of advertising, by adopting a practice termed culture jamming.
Culture jamming (also known as guerilla communication)
is a form of protest used by many anti-consumerist
social movements that “questions corporate and capitalist
ideologies and promotes changes in current consumer society.”
56 Adbusters visuals often refer to the corporate identities
of their target ad, prompting a double take when viewers
realise what they’re seeing is in fact the very opposite of
what they expected. Mimicking well- known brands such as
McDonalds, Marlboro and Balenciaga, these ads are primarily
aimed at the beauty, tobacco, fast-food and alcohol industry.
Images 08-10: “Spoof” ads from Adbusters
Though their use of irony in their words and imagery has
rhetorical value, the tactic can also be seen as problematic
for several reasons. First, the early 2000s showed a shift
in methods used by corporate marketers, in which parody
and irony have become dominant motifs of many successful
mass-marketing campaigns 57 and companies have incorporated
methods in which they mock themselves or latch onto
people’s need to “rebel against authority”. 56 What’s more, in
an article published in the Critical Studies in Media Communication
the professor Christine Harold argues that by being
the opposition or a saboteur, groups such as Adbusters positioning
themselves (resentfully) on the outside, constantly
only able to react and forcefully convey how “things are not
as they should be” without affirming possible alternatives.
According to Harold, “The frustration expressed by Adbusters’
readers implies that being told what is best for them
is no more welcome coming from Adbusters than it is coming
from advertisers.” In my more playful, subtle version of
a campaign, the aim is to move with the system rather than
against it, and address viewers at a time in which no preconceived
notions or defence mechanisms are set in place. My
aim is not to tell people what to do or what is wrong or right,
but rather use the subtle form of dissonance induced by presenting
seductive products that are not usable, to invoke interest
to the viewer to educate themselves on current issues
regarding greenwashing of recycling.
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