Cipher Unknown

I don’t know why I started thinking about Adbusters today, but I did. Then I thought to myself, “Hey, I’ll add an Adbusters link to my blog [that nobody reads].” So I did. Then I thought that maybe I should take a look at what’s good with Adbusters these days, since I don’t think I’ve looked at an issue since around 2003. What did I find? A bizarre screed railing against hipster culture as representative of the shallow narcissism that consumerist culture breeds. I was dumbfounded. When I first discovered Adbusters I deligthed in its subversion of corporate marketing technique. I had never heard of culture jamming, Ron English, or Banksy, and the ideas the magazine presented were fascinating. So it was sad/infuriating to read the hipster hit piece. My problems with it?

1. The surest sign that you are a hipster is to talk shit about hipsters. The piece was infused with enough sardonic observations to qualify as a Gawker post.

2. What the fuck good is it to talk shit about hipsters anyway? At least if your goal is to turn a critical eye to mainstream/corporate society? Hipsters are just a symptom of the problem, not a cause of it. The effort is sorely misplaced.

3. If you’re going to talk shit about hipsters, do not also talk shit about fixed-gear bicycles, especially when you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. The idea that politically disengaged kids would adopt a bicycle as a sign of some kind of street cred or whatever is a godsend from a urban planning/policy perspective. For whatever reason, kids think riding a bike is cool. That is awesome. Also, putting a brake on a fixed-gear does not defeat the purpose of a fixed-gear. Do some fucking research, guy.

4. I quote: “The American Apparel V-neck shirt, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and Parliament cigarettes are symbols and icons of working or revolutionary classes that have been appropriated by hipsterdom and drained of meaning.” Why is a writer for Adbusters defining working/revolutionary classes through bizarre generalizations about brand adoption? (Also, I’m pretty sure Subcommandante Marcos smokes American Spirits.)

Further browsing of the Abusters site revealed a pull quote from some shitty Thomas Friedman book, the fact that Abusters sells hemp sneakers for $75 a pop, and that the people behind Adbusters also run an advertising agency.

I took the link off.