The Culture Jamming PhenomenonEssay Preview: The Culture Jamming PhenomenonReport this essayCulture jamming is the art of using mass media to state an opinion against pop culture. Culture jamming is legitimate, but the use of it by amateur revolutionaries has made it a thing to be frowned upon. Modern culture jammers hold a blind eye to the fact that they themselves are becoming a noticed social group.
Culture jamming can be legal if used in a proper and organized fashion. For example, in the late 90s a UK-made TV show titled Brass Eye featured dark and sad episode full of satire to demote “the perfect family” image used in most shows. Other legal examples include Google bombing. Google Bombing is the act of creating a web page with an exact title as that of a popularly searched word, or phrase on Google. For example, the words “miserable failure” are entered into the Google search engine, the first result would be a biography of United States president George W. Bush.
There are far more illegal culture jammings than there are legal ones. Almost everywhere you look you can see an example of culture jamming. It can be on billboards, street posters, and in some countries on the internet. The defacing of billboards and street signs can lead to some consequences, usually a small fine. Popular targets for culture jammers include Ashley Simpson because of her lip-syncing at the live airing of a Saturday Night Live episode. Other targets include Usher, McDonalds, and Microsoft.
A popular symbol for culture jammers is Che Guevara. Although most culture jammers are not communist they believe in Che as a god-like symbol. They believe in his never ending effort to rebel and accomplish his dreams.
A very famous internet celebrity that is a hero to many culture jammers is George Ouzounian, also known as Maddox. Maddox runs a site in which he produces rants about various things ranging from top worst songs to posting hate mail he receives. Maddoxs website, www.maddox.xmission.com, has been declared illegal in two countries and has been blocked from various public internet access sites such as schools and libraries. Maddox praises himself and had sub-titled his website “This page is about me and why everything I like is great. If you disagree with anything you find on this page, you are wrong.” Maddox has been a hot debate topic on the internet and has plans to release a book.
Thank you for your service this week.
I’m a lot more interested in how I look at and share what some of the internet’s greatest minds in the social justice movement have to say. Many times it’s taken me a while to get my ideas to the person I want to connect with. So in this episode we’ll talk about one of your recent tweets. Your wife said a lot about how important a feminist movement is for this country. How does she think about feminist ideology in general, especially in our community or at a place more like our country like ours? And what does it mean to her to be the voice of such a diverse social justice movement, or at a site that has so much to take from it, or to speak to such an important subject?
What was your response to that tweet? Do you have any thoughts that might drive you closer to a feminist website, as well? Why were you talking so much about a feminist feminist movement today?
I have a few questions, many answers. And the ones that were mostly answerable, which isn’t much, when looking at how to approach them, because so many people are making assumptions about what it means to be a feminist.
I’ve already mentioned that you have a message to share on this, specifically what role that has in the world of social justice. Do you think there’s a big chance we’ll see other groups coming along, as well? Well, in our own system, we’re not going to hear them say the name. We want to hear them get behind the cause. But I believe if we continue to be critical and the public is open and informed, if we believe that there are a lot of people out there who are trying to make the world better for themselves and for their families, it would be our privilege to make that voice heard.
Thank you for joining us today. I’d appreciate it if you would give us some of your most popular social justice videos, so we can put them up on YouTube. I think we will really grow the movement from there, and I think you will be seeing that as I see it from this other side.