Culture Jam:
The Uncooling of America™
by Adbusters Founder Kalle Lasn

A penetrating book packed with enlightening information about the dangerously concentrated control of our media and corporations, the ensuing conformity, and what to do about it.


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  • "An awful lot of people are feelng down and they don't know why. Something is draining their energy, addling their brains - but they don't know what...More than anything else, it is our mediated, consumption-driven culture that's making us sick." - pages 10-11

  • "Corporations have been enthroned...An era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people...until wealth is aggregated in a few hands...and the republic is destroyed." - Abraham Lincoln quoted on page 68.

  • "The special status of corporations has placed them in a position to control a vast amount of economic power by which they may, if not regulated, dominate not only the economy but also the very heart of our democracy, the electoral process." - Supreme Court Justices White, Brennan and Marshall, quoted on page 160.

  • "We have files full of letters from the networks, plus transcripts of phone conversations with network executives, which prove that not just single thirty-second spots, but whole classes of information about transportation, nutrition, fashion and sustainable consumption are systeematically being kept off the public airwaves simply because they threaten big-money sponsors." - page 196.

  • "We don't want to take any advertising that's inimical to our legitimate business interests." - NBC network commercial clearance manager Richard Gitter.

  • "You may already be a culture jammer. Maybe you're a student who does not want a career working for corporate America. A graphic artist tired of selling your soul to ad agency clients. A vegan. A biker. A maverick professor...On the simplest level, we are a growing band of people who have given up on the American dream." - pages 111-112.

  • "Once you start trusting yourself and relating to the world as an empowered human being instead of a hapless consumer drone, something remarkable happens. Your cynicism dissolves." - From the Introduction to Culture Jam.

Signs of the Times

As you go through your usual day, do you see the beautiful land and nature of mythic America? Or is it K-Mart, Wal-Mart and Starbucks? You wake up - at a preprogrammed time determined by your company or your school. You eat breakfast - most likely from a huge corporate supermarket chain...or McDonald's. You get in your brand name car and get gas - there's an ad on the nozzle. Back on the road, it's one corporate sign after another - fast food joints, strip malls, billboards. You get to school, or drop your kids off to find corporations have penetrated this sphere, as well - coke machines, advertisements, and Channel One. The kids know the commercial themes better than their schoolwork. The holidays seem more Ca$hMa$ than Christmas these days. At the toy store buying presents - another advertisement smack dab in the middle of the shopping cart. You get home - a telemarketer calls. It dawns on you that you actually pay the telemarketer's salary to bother you, through increased product prices. You get frustrated. You've got to get away for a while. Time for a little escape.

But, to where can you escape? Put on public television - sponsored by corporations like Daimler-Chrysler, ExxonMobil, Ford, or SBC Ameritech,. Go to a movie or play a game - paid product placement of brand name cars, drinks, and even fruit. Meanwhile, the rebellious entertainers of the past, to whom we used to look for escape - Dylan, The Beatles, Jack Kerouac - are now used in commercials themselves. A Quaker sells oatmeal and chanting Buddhist monks are suddenly big supporters of Pepsi. Maybe a trip overseas wold help? Try again. 7-11 in Japan, Kentucky Fried Chicken in Southern Africa, department stores in Tibet.

There is an athlete who advertises for a corporation on his eyeballs, painfully symbolically people are renting their foreheads out for ads, and corporations are starting to use outer space to promote products. And we now have people, like Jared from Subway, whose sole claim to fame is being in advertisements. How much is enough?

Meanwhile, we find our culture riddled with disillusionment of every kind. Hardly any of us can truthfully say that we, or someone we care about, is unaffected. Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. Anxiety and Depression. Panic Attacks. Personality Disorders. Suicide. Five year-old girls on diets and thirteen year-old girls anorexic and bulimic. Our kids nearly get withdrawal from being away from the TV. Some of us consider nature to be the tree that we pass on the way in to the office. We buy water in bottles for fear of drinking out of our natural reservoirs. We don't go out at night alone, and lock our doors in fear of each other. And a constant stream of Prozac and Xanax takes the place of real discussion about how it is that so many can be so unhappy and dysfunctional in a country of such wealth and resources. And it seems far too few people are asking about the relationship between this cultural malaise and the seemingly uncontrollable proliferation of products and advertisements.

A Hollow Facade

How do you deal with such an environment? Many of us realize something is off, but feel we must go about our business and keep our mouths shut. This leads to increasing cynicism and disenchantment - a strange mixture of boredom and anxiety, coupled with a tinge of anger directed at nobody in particular. Some of us try to move beyond cynicism with action. But even as we begin to feel good about recycling our few cans, we watch a company dump tons of garbage in one day, then tell us that it is completely safe. Some of us take solace in signs of progress. We breathe a sigh of relief when we hear that world leaders are meeting to discuss solutions to global problems, only to watch the same leaders eat expensive, gourmet meals in the midst of poverty, then hypocritically dump their garbage, perpetuating the very problems they claim to be fixing. In general, we see a lot of talk, and not enough real change, comprising a polite "have-a-nice-day" facade of coolness.

Barely beneath the surface, we sense a hollowness. It all feels fake. The fancy clothes, the perfect stick-figure women, the focus on having the right job, the right car, the right school. The designer clothes, beauty industry standards, pollution-spewing SUV's and rat race are no longer cool. Things that originated in spontaneous expression have become prepackaged "cool", fake "cool". It feels a bit like the kid who started wearing an earring to be cool, only to find that even the conservative businessman down the street now had one. And when we see this long enough, some of us reach a "moment of truth". We can't ignore what we feel any longer, we can't continue just trying to fit in and hoping the feelings will go away. Eventually, enough of these "moments of truth" add up, and we know we have to make a change.

One Man's Moments of Truth

Such was the case with Kalle Lasn, a man whose background (born in Estonia, raised in Germany, worked in Austarlia and Japan) and skill set (market research and maker of documentary films seen on PBS and CBC) make him intimately aware of the role media and advertising play in shaping our disillusioned consumer culture. Thus, when the fakeness confronted him firsthand in 1989, he was ready for action. Logging companies near his present home, Vancouver, Canada, were tearing down forests, while covering it up with a "have-a-nice-day"-type feel-good public relations television campaign. Lasn decided to use his film skills to counter with a more realistic PR campaign. His struggles and successes in this endeavor led him to found Adbusters Media Foundation and Powershift Ad Agency, and planted the seed for social marketing campaigns including Buy Nothing Day and Turn-Off Your TV Week and Media Carta. Thus, when Lasn dedicates his book, Culture Jam, to "my mortal enemy, Philip Morris, Inc., which I vow to take down." it bears a bit more weight and reality than usual.

Through all of his experiences, Lasn was awakened by not just one "moment-of-truth", but many. In Culture Jam, he aims to share some of those epiphanies, offering both explanation, as well as effective targets, for our disillusionment. His description of the flawed historical lessons, incomplete economic equations, and corrupt media laws at the root of the problem will lend a sense of concreteness to your vague gut level feelings. And, never again will you wonder if these feelings are "all in your head" when you read about some of the others who have shared these views - from Abraham Lincoln to Supreme Court Justicies. While some of his conclusions may ring familiar and true to you, others will lead to fascinating awakenings and connections relevant to anyone who has felt, even vaguely, that something about our current media-hyped world of consumerism just isn't working.

America the Myth vs. America™ the Reality

Lasn's thesis revolves around the idea that we have bought into a vast mythology called America. Like cancer-inducing cigarettes promoted as cool and sexy, have you ever felt that the America passed on by our leaders, teachers and televisions does not match what you see in everyday life? America the country has become America™ the multi-trillion dollar brand.

America: "Of, By and For the People"?

Just about every schoolchild is told that America is created "of, by, and for the people." - us. But, do you, your family and your neighbors really seem to have any control over the big issues being talked about in our news and elsewhere? Did you decide on your own what to wear, what to drive, what look to aim for? Or did you choose from a set of options that seems to be coming from outside of us? From our TV's and from companies telling you that the right outfit, look and car would help you fit in and belong. That these things would make you cool? Lasn believes that what we talk about, eat, buy, and do every day is strongly controlled by a small minority of corporations (1/2 in Canada, Murdoch) page 186 lists the few co.s) who sell us their products and control our media. To some that may sound conspiratorial, while to others it may sound obvious. But, Lasn makes a solid case.

His most crucial lesson is that our current corporate situation is very new, and is the result of some very specific events, rarely talked about in school or on TV, which altered a previously strong American legacy of putting citizens above corporations. We have somehow come to see it as Un-American to limit corporations. In fact, nothing could be more opposite our history. The rise of such incredibly powerful companies wasn't just "meant to be", and it wasn't always like this. Going back to the origins of our nation, the Boston Tea Party and American Revolution served as strong statements against British corporate control of our country. And for a hundred years after that war, corporations were kept on a very short leash in America. If they did anything wrong, their charter was revoked. Today, it is hard to even imagine this time when corporate charters were given cautiously, with obligations to serve the people, and were quickly revoked if companies did not do so. But, it was only a few generations ago that American corporations were actually subordinate to individual citizens. "The life of a corporation is, indeed, less than that of the humblest citizen..." - Words of the highest court in New York State in 1890, quoted on page 160. And just fifty years ago, America had a healthy balance. People felt taken care of at their jobs, and kept their doors unlocked, could keep down a good job and raise a family, maintain a home, have all the basics, and still have time to take a family trip or two.

Culture Jam explains how the situation we see today was set in motion during the second half of the 19th Century. Today many who question corporate power are seen as troublemakers or radicals. But, even Abraham Lincoln, an American icon, feared the rise of corporations he saw beginning under his watch. Nonetheless, corporations began making enough money during the Civil War to buy influence in our government. Then, in 189?, a single momentous Supreme Court case set in motion what we see today. In a case that even Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said "could not be supported by history, logic or reason." corporations - fictional legal structures with no capacity to love or care, but designed solely to make money - were raised to a level on par with the rights of living, breathing caring human beings...fathers, daughters, mothers and sons. Today, it seems quite normal to us to see corporations as above citizens. But, this was certainly not the case before the Supreme Court's legal blunder, for which we are still paying today.

Since this case, courts find in favor of corporations (MI 98% favor). The rights given to them, not by our Constitution, but by an unbelievably unfair court decision, have allowed them to grow to unfathomable proportions. Combined with new organizations such as the World Trade Organization, which support their agendas, corporations are now forming one huge economy that knows no borders. In 1997, 51 of world's largest economies were corporations, not countries, while the top 500 corporations control 42% of the world's wealth. This may not even shock you anymore, in fact, it may even sound justified. But, we must look at the resulting effect of having these companies controlling every area of our lives - our food, our water, our air, our schools. Everywhere. They tell us what to wear, look like, what to drive and, through their control of our media, are not only prepackaging our goods, but prepackaging our conceptions and mindsets through advertising and sponsorships. At the same time, they are laying off workers, moving to other countries to avoid taxes, acting irresponsibly, and punishing the little guy when they get in trouble. And howcome the shareholders, who reap benefits when a company does well, aren't held accountable when it does wrong? If the company has the rights of a person, shouldn't it be punished like a person? This story has become cliche since Enron, but Lasn was talking about this years before. America has become "Of, By and For the Corporations". America has become America™.

America: "Land of the Free"?

"The land of the free." It's right in our national anthem. And sure enough, you are legally free, for the most part, to see the movies, listen to the music, and go to the shopping mall that you choose. We are blessed in many ways to live in America, when compared with some other countries which restrict freedom even more tightly.

But, in this "land of the free", how many days a week do you get to choose what you wear all day? How many days a week can you truly speak your mind completely without getting in trouble from your boss or your teachers? Despite our Constitutional rights, most barriers to true expression are not legal ones, but economic ones. And like the aforementioned examples, they originate in corporate control. This block of free expression reaches its pinnacle in the issue of media control. Say you had an important message that you wanted to get out to the public. Would the television station give you airtime to say it so many could hear?

Kalle Lasn can tell you the answer to that question from experience. The answer is that it depends what you want to say. Since founding Adbusters, Lasn has produced clever, professionally produced spots giving his view of the auto industry, fashion industry, television in general, overconsumption and others issues. And, despite the quality production of the spots, as well as his full willingness to pay for the airtime, CBC, NBC, CBS, ABC all turn them down year after year, just because they don't like what he says. This again may sound conspiratorial, but Lasn gives specific responses from the networks that are surprisingly candid about their block of his expression. For example:

"This commercial...is in opposition to the current economic policy in the United States." - CBS' Robert L. Lowary.

Not allowed to speak against the current economic policy? This isn't China or Russia, but the U.S. and Canada. Is this free speech? We tend to think that we have it much better than places like Lasn's native Estonia, where the government specifically blocks free speech. But Lasn sees the difference mainly as who is doing the blocking. He says "In the former Soviet Union you weren't allowed to speak out against the government. In North America today you cannot speak out against the sponsors." In Estonia, you can say what you want as long as the government approves. Here, you can say what you want on the public airwaves, as long as Coke and Daimler-Chrysler and Ford approve. The results of such censorship, in both cases, are quite dangerous. In 1992, 90% of news editors surveyed had experienced direct pressure from advertisers to influence content. Not even hidden. He shows how Chrysler specifically demanded control over some content.

A little-known, but crucial fact that Culture Jam raises is that of public ownership of the airwaves. Many forget that the public airwaves are ours. They belong to us, not ABC, CBS or NBC, which, like other corporations, were originally chartered as tools to serve the people. In fact, they were originally legally obligated to serve the public interest. Now they have gotten so far from the public that most of us would be floored to turn on the TV and see someone we know. Moreover, they seem to have gotten away from the crucial issues of the public. The UN, Surgeon General and AMA all feel TV is bad, but don't hear this on TV do you? World experts agree we are killing off the environment at unprecedented rates, noticeably missing from news. Some say the media is simply giving the public what they want, but don't you think people want to know this? However, they can't even fight for the right to be informed if they don't even know these things exist.

So, if our media is supposed to be informing us and benefitting us, why are they excluding such important things? In Culture Jam, Lasn offers striking evidence that the networks are systematically blocking certain issues from public view. This is what happens when the link between business and media is too great, just as link between Hollywood and government is too great. Don't think so? Furthermore, Lasn isn't talking about getting rid of companies. He simply wants networks to let us, the public, hear all of the information and decide for ourselves. Even if that information isn't what McDonald's, Coke, and other sponsors prefer us to hear.

American Dream or American Fantasy?

"The American Dream". It almost brings tears to your eyes it sounds so big and wonderful. But, if you dissect it, it seems most of that dream revolves around money and consumerism. From the dream childhood full of the toys advertised on Saturday morning TV to your first allowance to your first car to your first house, all the way up to your mansion and BMW, it seems our rites of passage towards the American Dream have one color: green. A somewhat shallow dream even for those who do achieve it.

Worse yet, most won't even achieve that shallow dream. For many, even buying a modest house seems an unattainable fantasy. How many people do you know who swear that they will be the next Michael Jordan, the next Eminem, a famous actor, rich and successful. Now what is the reality of these people you know? Unemployed? Underpaid? Menial, tedious jobs? And even among those who do have a nice apartment and car, how many of them are actually in great debt to pay them off. How many will owe money for years to pay off their college education which cost more than ever and got them a humiliating, underpaid job? And how many do you know who actually got the dream, yet no time for kids, no fulfillment, denial, guilt, emptiness. For some the dream turns into a nightmare.

Mismeasurement and Denial

It doesn't take a radical environmentalist to know that nothing on earth can grow constantly without doing serious damage. Any kid knows that when you eat too many cookies, you get sick. Yet, it seems our current philosophy in America is that if too many cookies is making us sick, we should eat even more cookies. More and more mainstream scientists are telling us that this philosophy is getting us in trouble. 1994 World Academy of Science directors declared that we are going down dangerous road. But, Culture Jam shows how the unsustainability and denial is entrenched in what we measure and don't measure, as well as in our economic system.

Why is it that we measure the chemicals in water and air that could pollute our bodies, yet seem strangely unafraid of the pollutants that we know affect our minds? Should we be paying more attention to the effects that our current culture's noise creates. Before you shrug off such a suggestion, think of how many people you know who can't even sleep or study without music or TV on. Should we be paying more attention to the effects of modern television's countless quick camera angle switches on our anxiety levels, not to even mention the fear and sex and constant marketing hype in the actual content. You'd have to be pretty prude to object to a little bit of sensationalism, but what does it say about our culture when Calvin Klein ads glorify the heroin lifestyle and Benetton uses dying AIDS patients to sell clothes? Lasn believes it shows just how far advertisers have to go to shock us anymore out of our hypnotic state. This sounds conspiratorial, until you remember the last time you watched someone stare aimlessly at the television or computer screen for hours on end.

If we are neglectful in our measurements of our mental pollution, then our economic measures are downright despicable. Our economics revolves around the Gross National Product, the dollar value of all goods and services produced in a nation's economy, including goods and services produced abroad. We base decisions that affect every one of us deeply on this number. And yet, think about what is missing in that number. It tells us quantity, but nothing about the quality of the products. It tells us nothing about the unpaid roles of family, caring, volunteering. Is it any wonder that people who spend their time more on people than productes feel so unrewarded? It also leaves out any judgment about the benefit vs. harm of the events that triggered production. Think about this: the Gross National Product increases due to wars, oil spills, even cancer patients.

Meanwhile, the way we price products leaves out tons of "external" costs that are being handed down to our children and grandchildren. When you pay for a car, does it include the cost of the pollution? When you buy cigarettes, does it include the cost of the medical care that smoking necessitates on our whole system? Where are the species killed off in the process factored in? Someone is going to have to pay for these things, and if it isn't the person buying the product, who will it be? Because of this lack of accountability for purchasers, investors and shareholders, people feel free to invest in anything that makes money, without much attention to whether a company is actually doing harmful things. This, Lasn explains is why 97% of economic transactions are now speculative, based on guesses rather than results, more than three times as wishy-washy as in 1970. The economy has become one big casino.

Finally, Lasn pinpoints the roots of this irresponsible measurement and pricing in the mathematically flawed philosophy of our economic leaders. Laurence Summers, former chief economist of the World Bank, has gone as far as to say that "The idea that we should put limits on growth because of some natural limit is a profound error." Like kids with stomach-aches ready with another handful of cookies, our economic leaders say the solution to our problems is more growth. They wield charts and equations designed to show that our salvation lies in more buildings, more factories and more industry. You may not have their equations, or their fancy titles, but looking around, does it seem to you that more strip malls is what's missing? Do you notice a striking shortage of buildings overwhelming the landscape? There is something hollow in these answers, that doesn't ring true. It sounds...well...fake. Culture Jam explains how a new generation of economists are challenging this philosophy of constant growth and offering new, more complete, economic measures which tell a very different story - one that eliminates the seeming discord between the decades of constant growth shown by the Gross National Product and the growing sense of disillusionment and malaise.

A New Wake-Up Call to Uncool America: Culture Jamming

How can things have gotten this bad? How did we let a legal entity created to help us get so big that now we are at its mercy? How did we go from a nation that demands public service from its media to one that accepts limited access and is shaped by its money-making agenda? How did we let ourselves sink this deeply into an unsustainable American Dream? Even without good measures, it would seem that things couldn't possibly get so bad without our noticing. But this is not necessarily how the mind works. In many cases, the more something grows, the less we notice it. For example, a sudden, new noise jolts you out of your sleep. But, a slow growing buzz in the background may actually lull you to sleep. You end up in a trance of sorts. Lasn describes what he calls our "media-trance", a slow process of marketing-induced hypnosis that blinds us to the growing problems. He also explains how the media plays on this state to keep us glued to the television, while their sponsors keep us staring at their advertisements while in a vulnerable mental state. The passive mindset this process has bred has left spontaneity and authenticity sadly wanting.

What can we do about it? Lasn says we can change the world. His army: Culture Jammers.

You May Already Be a Culture Jammer

Culture Jammers are a loose global network of artists, activists, environmentalists, entreprenurs, media-literacy teachers, downshifters, philosophers and others ranging from mainstream intellectuals to workers who want more peace of mind and free time to fringe radicals. As such, they cut across traditional categories, with no strict hierarchy. The one thing Culture Jammers have in common is that they are sick of the prepackaged fakeness and desire to return to spontaneous, authentic, direct experiences in life. Everyone is welcome and we're all in it together.

Breaking Through the Facade

"In a small room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot." - Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz quoted on page 99 of Culture Jam.

Culture Jamming involves questioning authority and using spontaneous and bold acts to interrupt the media-trance, and uncool brands, fashions and celebrities. In this way, its philosophy resembles many others. In describing it, Lasn references such wide-ranging resources as Zen Buddhism, The Truman Show, Your Money or Your Life and Brave New World. Lasn also places Culture Jamming in the context of a long legacy of freedom-seekers and practitioners of civil disobedience, relating today's fight to free ourselves from corporate and media control to that of the American revolutionaries who fought off British corporations, the civil rights and womens' rights movements and evironmentalism.

Once we act spontaneously to break through the fake facade to expose what's under it, we can start to overcome the denial of our culture. We can start measuring the things we have chosen to look away from, such as the effect of spending 1/4 of waking life in front of a TV. We can also start to admit that our problems run much deeper than wonderful, but superficial endeavors like recycling cans. When we start breaking through the facade, as Lasn has done for years, we will come to another, more heartening, "moment of truth". We will find that the entire structure behind our current house-of-cards mess rests tenuously on a few fundamental ideas. Furthermore, we will find that widely exposing even one of these ideas is powerful enough to make huge changes.

Culture Jamming's Two-Pronged Succcess Strategy

For the skeptics, Lasn makes an example of the anti-smoking campaign. Just, a couple decades ago, a withered and dying Yul Brynner, ravaged by lung cancer, changed forever the knee-jerk reaction of Americans to the idea of smoking. Now, not only do we all know it's bad (even those who still consciously choose to do it), but tobacco ads aren't even broadcast on radio or TV. Whatever your specific view of smoking, the point is that a single, powerful alternative image that breaks through the facade can change everything. Lasn explains how, working in top-down fashion through the web, TV and other media, we can find similar leverage points in other unhealthy areas. We can "uncool" the idea that more is better. We can "uncool" the idea of eating food whose origin we don't know, some of which is genetically modified, and some of which is actually made by a cigarette company. We can "uncool" the idea of younger and younger children being preyed upon by the fashion industry, a practice that led the U.S. Justice Department to investigate Calvin Klein for child pornography. We can "uncool" the supermodel facade. We can "uncool" the idea of spewing tons of noise and accidents and pollution without factoring in any of the cost, making our children pay for it all. We can make people more aware of our unhealthy actions, while spreading the idea of responsible measurement and accountability.

Meanwhile, we can act locally to reinforce the top-down message in bottom-up fashion, demanding that corporations and the media serve us on a grassroots level, and holding shareholders and investors accountable for the results of their investments. This may sound idealistic, but the strategy has produced successes in the past. In the 1800's, many irresponsible and damaging corporations' charters were revoked in places like Michigan, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. More recently, actions in this direction have taken place in Alabama, California, New York, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Washington and other states. Boston residents succeeded in revoking the license of WHDH-TV, McDonald's has leaned up their fries and is being resisted both in the U.S. and elsewhere. Lasn's own Media Foundation is going to court over the networks' exclusion of his advertising. The facade has shown some cracks. The ultimate goal is to overturn the original, unjustifiable Supreme Court decision which allowed corporations to assume the rights of individuals.

From Disenchantment to Freedom

"What I'm saying is that the American dream isn't working anymore, so let's face that reality and start building a new one."

America is at a great turning point in its history. We started as revolutionaries longing to be free, became the most powerful nation on earth, and are now being buried beneath our own greed and overconsumption. We need to reawaken and take the power back, break the trance, and remind the corporations and media that they are granted their charters and allowed in our towns and on our airwaves to benefit us, not vice-versa. By reclaiming our public airwaves, public lands, and our sovreignty as citizens, we can turn the tide of cynicism into one of empowerment.

Your disenchantment is quite justified. Nobel Prize winners, Supreme Court Justices and Presidents have feared overwhelming corporate and media control because of exactly the results that we are seeing today. But now it's time to go past these feelings to action. Lasn quotes author Edward Abbey's comment that "Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul." The ultimate lesson of Culture Jam is that by joining others in taking action, you can move beyond disenchantment and cynicism, which Lasn defines as "rage that can no longer get it up" to a feeling of power and freedom. Culture Jammers all over the world are ready to join you and each stand that we take builds in cooperation towards a better, more authentic, more spontaneous way of life.
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