************************************************************** * * * CYBERSPACE * * A biweekly column on net culture appearing * * in the Toronto Sunday Sun * * * * Copyright 1999 Karl Mamer * * Free for online distribution * * All Rights Reserved * * Direct comments and questions to: * * * * * ************************************************************** How much toothpaste do you put on your brush? If you're like most people, you cover the entire brush. A dentist will tell you need no more than a pea-sized bit of toothpaste to clean your teeth (see www.umanitoba.ca/outreach/wisdomtooth/brushing.htm). So why do most of use five times the recommended amount? Because nearly every toothpaste ad we see features an overloaded toothbrush. How many times have you heard a car commercial claim "the largest engine in its class"? Sounds most macho, no? The ad fails to tell you it happens to be the /only/ car in its class. As a society, we are sometimes lulled into believing truth in advertising laws ensure we're told the whole truth. Consequently we don't apply all the critical reasoning faculties Ontario's fine public schools have instilled in us. Netizens are using the power of the net to help tell the other side of the story. A movement called "Culture Jamming" seeks to dam the massive flow of information being pumped out by advertisers, Hollywood, and political spin doctors. Culture jammers are using a combination of high-tech means like web sites and low tech tools like magic markers to expose and question the agendas of people trying to get you to part with your hard-earned money and your hard-won vote. The leading culture jammer is Canada's own Adbusters magazine (www.adbusters.org). Through a series of brilliant and sometimes haunting parody commercials, Adbusters tries to "uncool" the ad campaigns of the beer, running shoe, cigarette, and fashion industries. The Adbusters site provides a lot of information that helps junior jammers start their own media by-pass campaigns. You can find out how to create your own print and TV ads and get them published. Adbusters also provides tips on the fine art of "billboard liberation." Billboard liberation amounts to property destruction and I personally can't advocate that kind of behavior. But I must confess I do get a chuckle when I see a bus shelter ad featuring a too-thin underwear model turned into a ghastly skeleton with no more than a few simple strokes of a black magic marker. One of the most brilliant culture jamming groups is New York's Guerrilla Girls (www.guerrillagirls.com/Index.html). The Guerrilla Girls is a group of enigmatic women artists tired of being snubbed or marginalized by important art galleries in New York. For over ten years these artists have been creating various poster campaigns that expose sexism and racism in our cultural industries. For example, one poster asks if being naked is the only way women can get exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Their poster notes 5% of the gallery's artists are women but 85% of the nudes are female. You don't have to deface property or produce your own thirty second "uncommercials" to culture jam. As the page at www.matador.recs.com/survey/index.html points out, you can have lots of fun filling out bogus information on marketing surveys. Why? Little do we know, marketers have us slotted (usually by postal or zip code) into a number of rather insulting demographic categories like "Big Spender Parents," "Machos," "Entertain-Me's," and "Zero Mobility." The page at www.ends.com/low/lifequiz.html lets you punch in an American zip code and get a less-than-complimentary breakdown of what a marketer thinks constitutes your lifestyle. For example, if you're living in the Detroit zip code of 48213, you might be considered a member of the "Difficult Times" group. Your pastimes are thought to be based around drinking wine coolers, using laundromats, and smoking menthol cigarettes. Not a pretty picture is it? So why not jam it?