Cultural Jamming

Cultural Jamming We live in a capitalist society, a society that functions and thrives on the producing and selling of consumer goods. The mining of raw materials, the economic phenomena known as globalization, the emergence of big banks, are all dedicated to ensure that the flow of products does not stop. In order to sell and profit from these goods, companies dedicate hundreds of millions of dollars into market research, so they know, precisely, how to advertise their products for mass consumption.

They pick the appropriately researched and approved colors, models, landscape, and etcetera, all in hopes of selling you the next hot item. These advertisements are on billboards, television, radio, and the internet. Everywhere you go and see, there is someone trying to sell you something. Few people ever stop to think about these ads; what they mean, how did they get there, the socio-economic ramifications. There are a group of artists, cultural jammers, who defy corporate interests in order to stimulate the minds of the public.

Jammers are a combination of pranksters and revolutionaries. They change billboards or other form of advertisements to expose the corporate mentality behind the ad, or shift the public's focus to an unspoken reality of the product being advertised. A good jam explores the subconscious of a campaign, revealing the hidden truth. Cultural jamming is finding a new revival, in the age of Occupy Wall-Street and the bail out of Big Banks, as disillusioned young activists show their disapproval of multi-national corporations that eagerly want their generation's business.

Jammers come from all walks of life but maintain a common ideology that free speech is meaningless if commercial interests are drowning everyone else's voices. This message is easily transferable because of modern technologies, particularly the internet and social media. The internet and social media allows ideas and images to reach a vast audience. Some jammers still retain low-tech methods to spread their message utilizing nothing more than a magic marker. The most important thing about cultural jamming is that it is a response demanded by the people.

People are tired of being told what to wear, how to look, what to buy and they don't want to be classified into categories by corporations. Corporations have more influence on an individual's day-to-day than other major institution. They are the new creators of norms and values. Corporations tell what is beauty, what is fashionable or "cool," everything is being dictated to the people. The public on the other hand are lagging behind economically while big banks and corporations gain record breaking profits year after year.

Jamming is the people's emotional response to corporate domination. It is an effort to be heard in a society that is increasingly finding it difficult to focus. Jamming is not an outright rejection of consumer culture, but more like an expose. It is revealing the motivations behind.