We're Jammin! (Culture Jamming)

When I read the words “Culture Jamming” on the syllabus, I was very confused as to what the words meant and the only thing that came to mind was Bob Marley’s song entitled, “Jammin”...Which is playing on my Itunes as I write this post.

After reading several definitions of the two words, I still could not find a source that I thought described it in the best of terms. So I have chosen to define it myself. I believe Culture Jamming to be a rebellion against corporations that are interested in selling products to consumers by poking fun at the messages they send to the masses. Culture Jamming is usually done to raise awareness to consumers in an entertaining way.

To show my understanding of Culture Jamming, above is an image that I came across that I will analyze.

This image pokes fun at the Pepsi Corporation by using the well-known Pepsi logo and modifying it to look like a large man drinking Pepsi. The logo is recognizable because it uses the three colours that Pepsi is known for: red, white and blue. In Understanding Comics the Invisible Art, Scott McCloud writes about the colours used in comic superheroes costumes, explaining how these colours symbolize the character in the mind of the reader, much like the colours used in popular logos. To further this idea, think of the colours that represent the McDonalds, Roger’s, Cocoa-Cola, Re/max, Nike, Ebay, Zellers... and I think you get the point! When we see these colours in an image, we quickly can recognize what company it belongs to.

...and now for something completely different so I still pass!

This image presents ideas that twist the message Pepsi delivers to the public. As discussed in class, the advertisement has been hijacked to create something effective. The image was made available by Adbusters, “a global network of artists. activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age. [Their] aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will in the 21st century” (“Adbusters”). This group has a collection of images that spoof the original meaning of logos and advertisements in order to make awareness about what a product might do to the consumer. This image tells us that Pepsi has the possibility of making the consumer overweight... if they choose to drink a lot of this product.


Works Cited:

Klosterman, Chuck. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. New York: Scribner., 2003.