Adbusters LiveJournal Culture Jammers

collaborators wanted for large anti-consumerist event!

Tue, 12 May 2009 22:27:32 GMT

Hello!

I've just started a non-profit organization called The S.W.A.P. Team, and we organize large-scale clothing swaps to benefit local communities. We're looking for community-oriented activists to help us bring our popular event to more cities!

Everyone who we work with is a volunteer and none of us are paid. However, since we do have some sponsorships and funding, The S.W.A.P. Team does provide centralized logistics, marketing and PR support, which really helps to get the word out and create a feeling of a broader "movement" - one of sharing and consumption awareness - which are critical to our mission.

Our web site is going live at the end of this month and we have already secured dates in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. Want to get involved in your city? Please post any questions here or email me at aleece (dot) germano (at) gmail (dot) com.

Let's talk swap!
Aleece

p.s. you can also follow us on Twitter or Facebook for news and event updates. Thanks!

"Don't buy stuff" on Saturday Night Live

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 06:27:27 GMT

Check out this short clip from saturday night live: Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford WARNING: there may be a commercial at the beginning.

I think the credit crisis and bailouts are putting some of the big dysfunctional elements of our system in the spotlight, and that can't be a bad thing.

Terror marketing

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:22:49 GMT

"Terror marketing, or toxic marketing, is one area of negative psychological triggering that works when the target demographic has developed resistance to mass-marketing techniques. In some sense, all black metal relies on toxic marketing. Most horror films use toxic marketing, and a great example comes from the 1990 film Crazy People, in which an advertising executive places an ad for a film called The Freak with a tagline that states "This film won't just scare you, this film will fuck you up for life."

http://www.publicindividual.com/memetics/page59.html

PROTEST THE FEDERAL RESERVE

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 01:17:33 GMT

NATIONWIDE PROTEST NOVEMBER 22
39 STATES
PROTEST FOR THE REPEAL OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE ACT

http://endthefed.us

Netwar- the swarm, 2.0, and its effect on conflict.

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 23:23:16 GMT

The rand corporation published this white-paper on the subject that I think many of you may find interesting. (Not surprisingly, many of these are ideas I played with liberally during the creation of my 2nd novel, Fallen Nation.)

"Editors’ abstract. As with other new modes of conflict, the practice of netwar is ahead of theory. In this concluding chapter, we suggest how the theory of netwar may be improved by drawing upon academic perspectives on networks, especially those devoted to organizational network analysis. Meanwhile, strategists and policymakers in Washington, and elsewhere, have begun to discern the dark side of the network phenomenon, especially among terrorist and criminal organizations. But they still have much work to do to harness the bright side, by formulating strategies that will enable state and civil-society actors to work together better."

The use of "bad guys" and "good guys", used so liberally throughout, is rather comedic. However, the central premise is sound.

Also of particular note:

Why have the members assumed a network form? Why do they remain
in that form? Networks, like other forms of organization, are held together by the narratives, or stories, that people tell.

The kind of successful narratives that we have in mind are not simply rhetoric—
not simply a “line” with “spin” that is “scripted” for manipulative ends. Instead, these narratives provide a grounded expression of people’s experiences, interests, and values.

First of all, stories express a sense of identity and belonging—who “we” are, why we have come together, and what makes us different from “them.” Second, stories communicate a sense of cause, purpose, and mission. They express aims and methods as well as cultural dispositions—what “we” believe in, and what we mean to do, and how.

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 00:28:26 GMT

the context of my last post (http://community.livejournal.com/adbusters/464433.html) was that it was an email written to his family and it's true that it didn't have a lot of sources cited, but it's aim was to begin a discussion and to plant an over view of some things that would be useful for people to look up. his conclusions are based on a lot of research though and aren't just delusions (while it's possible that they are someones delusions, i sincerely doubt it.)

the notion, to most people, of a group of people who meet in secret to manipulate world affairs for their own evil agenda seems pretty out there, but it's really a simple thought(often a telling sign of truth). there's a film called "money as debt" that i HIGHLY recommend. if you're like me you always kind of wondered what money was about, but no one that you asked seemed to be able to tell you. this film is VERY informative (a little confusing, but layed out well) as to the way our monetary system works. it isn't as if they have to try very hard to control us. it's been a long time that they've been working at it, and the world now is such that they pretty much just have to maintain it and tweek things around to keep people from realizing that they can be happy and it's rather simple. they control the money and, thus, control transportation and food etc., not to mention the media and propaganda machine. the idea is that people are afraid and willing to give up freedom for safety. wars are perpetuated in order to create a situation like that.

more on comparing the u.s. situation with nazi germany. i'm not saying it because it's extreme or scary, i'm saying it, because these are valid things that need to be pointed out and questioned. i honestly don't understand why it's so far-fetched for people to think that it's at least (the very least) a possibility, especially given our history. do you think that in order to create a situation like world war two that there wasn't a lot of planning and trickery going on? do you think that the german people were just racist to begin with and wanted to have wars? unlikely. the world banks (the very same world banks of today) collapsed their economy, and once people are desperate for food and help, they were much more willing to fight against the people that they're told are perpetuating it (jews, communists, anarchisist, terrorists- they've had many names for them/excuses throughout the years.)

this site looks like it has a lot of interesting articles on it.
http://www.savethemales.ca/archives.html
here's the article that brought me to it: http://www.savethemales.ca/000369.html
"...HITLER'S SECRET BACKERS

The book "Financial Origins of National Socialism" (1933) by "Sydney Warburg" provides another glimpse of how the Illuminist clique supported Hitler. This 70-page booklet was suppressed for many years but was republished in 1983 as "Hitler's Secret Backers."

"Warburg" describes a July 1929 meeting with "Carter," the President of J.P. Morgan's Guarantee Trust, the Presidents of the Federal Reserve Banks, "the young Rockefeller" and "Glean from Royal Dutch." These are all Rothschild dominated.

It was determined that Warburg who spoke German should travel to Germany and ask Hitler how much money he needed to overthrow the state. The only stipulation was that Hitler adopts "an aggressive foreign policy."

"Warburg" details five meetings with Hitler between 1929 and 1933. The first took place in a beer cellar and Hitler calculated his needs on the back of a paper plate. About $25 million was transferred. This was extremely important in the depth of the depression because the Nazis provided food and shelter to many of their supporters.

Hitler wasn't told the reason for this support and did not ask. On two occasions, he wondered out loud if "Warburg" was himself Jewish but dismissed the idea before "Warburg" could reply.

There is no "Sydney Warburg" but the internal evidence suggests the author could be James P. Warburg, son of Federal Reserve founder Paul Warburg. General Ludendorff testified at the Nuremburg trials that James P Warburg was the conduit through which eventually $34 million was transferred from Wall Street to the Nazis."

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on the U.S. employing nazi scientists etc and some of their bios
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paper_Clip
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/project_paperclip.htm

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these are articles on the army starting to be redeployed in the U.S. to keep "terrorism" down.
http://www.dailynewscaster.com/2008/06/03/marines-to-begin-martial-law-training-in-indianapolis/
http://www.army.mil/-news/2008/09/15/12422-consequence-management-response-force-to-join-army-northern-command/
http://www.examiner.com/x-536-Civil-Liberties-Examiner~y2008m9d24-Army-to-station-activeduty-unit-in-the-US
http://www.prisonplanet.com/northcom-denies-troops-to-be-used-for-crowd-control.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/use-of-military-in-quelling-domestic-unrest-a-scary-sign.html

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
here's some on the internment camps that are being built to house american citizens(it seems)
http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/con_camps.htm
http://www.greaterthings.com/News/Concentration_Camps/

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according to this, the lives lost as a result of U.S. backed terrorism, just in the third world, is the same as the hollocaust. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Truth_Commissions/Truth_Commission_page.html
it doesn't even mention the huge amounts of iraqis, afghanis, or even americans etc etc etc that have RECENTLY died or been enslaved by these people. to go into history about it would be to realize that they are responsible for every american war, if not every major war in the world since they've been established (when i say "they" i'm generally speaking of world banking cartels and the people that control monetary wealth.) i have a lot more research to do on this subject- if you're educated about it at all or know of any good resources(for this and everything) i would greatly appreciate a little direction.

"vibrant response"

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 21:59:11 GMT

is commentary necessary?

http://www.dailynewscaster.com/2008/06/03/marines-to-begin-martial-law-training-in-indianapolis/

http://www.examiner.com/x-536-Civil-Liberties-Examiner~y2008m9d24-Army-to-station-activeduty-unit-in-the-US

http://www.army.mil/-news/2008/09/15/12422-consequence-management-response-force-to-join-army-northern-command/

http://www.northcom.mil/news/2008/091508.html

The Market As Performance Art

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:51:38 GMT

So, the bailout goes down in flames, the Republican pundit and talk show host talking point handout sheet directs the right wing media droids to hammer speaker Nancy Pelosi over the failure of this plan. They obediently proceed to do so in spite of the fact that the house republicans were instrumental in scuppering the plan to which the democrats had characteristically conceded . Alex Jones has been foaming at the mouth in a most entertaining way as a protest on Wall Street and over a hundred other locations on Friday goes pretty much unreported. The Standard & Poor’s 500 (SPX) index was down 8.7% and the Nasdaq composite (COMP) 9.1%. The Dow closed down 777 points (7%!). Is this God showing his opinion of our actions as Rosh Hashanah was about to begin at sunset? Happy New Year.

Read article on Alterati.com.

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 01:23:38 GMT

my boyfriend wrote this. it is amazing PLEASE READ IT
not only read it but, please please do some follow up research and go to the recommended links.
it's about much of what's happening in the world right now and it's good to LEARN THINGS and EMPOWER YOURSELVES about them. make sure that you give yourself some options and a little foresight. if you're critical of any of this nonsense, then you ARE CONSIDERED THE ENEMY OF THE UNITED STATES and you should be aware of it.

Ok. What I'm about to rant off to you all is out of concern for your lives. It's going to come off condescending and possibly crazy, depending on the extent to which you believe american propaganda, but I feel it's my absolute duty to pass on what you may have been missing. We're in for a seriously dark time and few seem to be realizing the true extent of it.

Step 1 has absolutely got to be to turn OFF the damn tv if you're at all interested in perceiving the truth about what our country has become and what we are doing to the world. CSPAN can be good if you're interested in using a finetooth comb to pick through the raw data, but spouts some heavy propaganda, just not quite as badly as Mr. Murdock's, whose cadre currently effectively gives the thumbs up or down to ALL mainstream news.

American newsmedia, including most newspapers and magazines, are on par with 1939 Nazi propaganda and are enabling the continuation of one of the most evil eras the people of the world have ever seen. Jon Stewart is funny and can get you in the right direction, but close no longer counts.

I've been putting off an email of this sort for way too long. I care about you all and want you to survive, and honestly you're all completely unprepared for what seems to be coming. Our nation is in the final stages of a coup, a complete takover of our minds and physical bodies. If you think Obama will save you, you're in for a nasty surprise and it truly makes me sad and amazed that he has deceived so many well-intentioned people. McCain obviously is overtly psychotic, but I hate Obama at least equally because he's such a goddamn lying puppet of the New World Order but comes across as "hope and change."

Granted our country was never much more than a racist and rapacious military occupation, squeezing every drop it could from the beautiful land and people who once called this hemisphere home. But since the 1910s, with the enactment of the ILLEGAL federal government and the Federal Reserve's fiat-ification of our currency, we've become a nation of slaves. It's no longer skin color, now it's being a member of the bottom 99%. The progression has taken awhile, because although Americans now are bewilderingly stupid and proud of it, they once seemed to have had a tradition of respecting free thought and took independence seriously. The best slave is one who believes he is free, and we all fit the bill of that one nicely. http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/ is an amazing resource for monetary enlightenment.

You are all being told that Obama is going to be your great savior and you are taking it at face value. Allow me to prove you wrong and PLEAD with you, if you must be duped by the idea that votes are counted, to vote for Nader, who now has 30 million people voting for him by some estimates, to strongly consider LEAVING THE COUNTRY (I recommend Norway if you can afford the transition, they're independent and outside the EU still, Canada still seems like a good bet too), or at least to grow a shitload of food in your backyard and stock up on guns. This is no joke. They're counting on everyone ignoring people like me. You should all be aware of the coups which took place in at least the last two elections, and the nature of the electronic voting for this coming one (hackable in 18 seconds and installed on-the-honor-system by employees of a private corporation). Hopefully you've heard the famous quote by Stalin; "Those who cast the votes decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything." Maybe not. If Nader even were elected by some miracle, the NWO would off him the way they've offed any other American "president" who worked against their agenda of world government, primarily for the crime of putting american currency on a hard standard again. This time around, they've most definitely presented you with "two wings of the same bird" and squelched the third parties like never before.

Our country and its 4000 nuclear warheads, more-than-the-rest-of-the-world-combined military spending (which was just almost unanimously increased by our congress by $100 billion), weather manipulation technology and terrifyingly advanced systems of death and mind control are in their final days of usurpation into the hands of the global elite. Such Nazi murdering scum trillionaire Babylonian-royalty-descendant criminals as the Rockerfellers, Rothchilds, Kissinger, JP Morgan, GoldmanSachs (Obama's largest funder) etc., working through global establishments such as the WorldBank, WHO, IMF, Bilderberg cult, etc. have put into play the final stages of their grab of the world, largely by way of this country. The endgame toward marshall law began with 911, which hopefully you are all aware was a CIA operation (if somehow you aren't, watch Loose Change or Endgame IMMEDIATELY), progressed right through the Patriot Act and on into this new "financial 911" that god I hope you're all paying attention to.

Their goal is complete control. They've got your minds and they're about to have your bodies and entire future in the palm of their hands. Recently leaked army documents describe the rapidly approaching event of multitudes of troops being brought back from Iraq to deal with "civil unrest." http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/8364. Did you see what happened at the RNC protests? Cops are tasering people to death left and right, our army and our ILLEGAL PRIVATE MILITIAS i.e. blackwater are sending people off to secret prisons around the world. We have more military bases in other countries than Rome, Babylon, Nazi Germany/Italy and USSR ever had, combined, including one massive one going by the name of ISRAEL. Our country has given a CONSTANT supply of weaponry and money to Israel since it began as a foothold in the middle east. Palestinians are dehumanized and brutalized on a DAILY BASIS by OUR TAX DOLLARS. Think that's me being racist? That's AIPAC and the ADL at work. I'm 1/4 Jewish. Don't believe me? PLEASE DIG.

How bout another quote from Nazi higher-up Hermann Goering from Nuremberg. "It is a simple matter indeed to convince the populace to go to war. One must simply tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism." No shit. Heard of Operation Paperclip, where a multitude of Nazi higherups and scientists were incorporated into the American elite? Are you aware that Obama is just as much a proponent of the BS official 911 story as McCain, is just as much of a criminal liar about the reality of what's been going on in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Iran, in Pakistan, in Latin America/Columbia/Venezuela/Cuba. The formula goes: we fund terrorists we like to overthrow legitimate governments that would lose us money, resources and cheap labor.

Are you aware that we are now at war with Pakistan? The Mariott incident last week is CLEARLY another 911 resultant from the fact that our War Of Terror puppet Musharraff was finally removed as president (to the joy of the Pakistanis). The CIA wouldn't have it. Yet another false-flag attack blamed on "al-Qaeda" to perpetuate the American agenda. Why would a Pakistani "terrorist" ever do such a thing at such a time of victory for the Pakistanis?

Hopefully you're all aware of Bin Laden's lifetime of work with the CIA and his family's intimate connection with Washington and its oil interests. No? Check out Slave And Master-The Saudi American Relationship, and do note that Bin Laden's family was escorted first class out of the country moments after 911. Do note from pictures of the pentagon that it could not POSSIBLY have been a plane, that the government confiscated all the neighboring businesses' tapes of the event, that the WTC fell AT THE SPEED OF GRAVITY (perfect demolition) and burned at temperatures vastly unattainable by jet fuel explosions, that Rumsfeld himself told defensive aircraft to stand down, that THEY FOUND A FEW OF THE SUPPOSED HIJACKERS LATER, VERY ALIVE, IN AFGHANISTAN. Etc. etc. etc.

Are you aware that in Afghanistan, which Obama and Biden vehemently declare we must step up our domination of, we have killed and poisoned millions of innocent people and kill women and children on a daily basis? More than half of our bombs miss their intended target and kill ONLY civilians. Recently we illegally crossed over the Pakistani border and slaughtered civilians, the Pakistanis flipped out, and then we did it again.

Iraq and Afghanistan have been made into DNA-mutating depleted uranium hellholes by our illegal weaponry. We're there solely because of the CIA and the global shadow-government having dragged us deeper and deeper into war with the Russians, and using all kinds of sick tactics to do so. We gave mass amounts of guns and money to the most violent and crazy people in the region so that they'd fight the Russians, and now we blame the populace for being "crazy Muslims" who can't keep a country together now that it's spiraled out of control. Big surprise. WAR = PROFIT. America makes INCREDIBLE amounts of money by selling weaponry and fighting wars. Your beloved Democrats with Bill Clinton at the wheel decided it was a good idea to get the world to starve and disease the civilians of Afghanistan to death for years through HEAVY sanctions to the estimated tune of HALF A MILLION DEAD CHILDREN. What a solution. Georgie rolls back in and now we're dropping huge amounts of heavy tanks along the Iranian border. Don't believe me? DIG.

Anyone notice the massive propaganda with the Georgia situation recently? We fund/install a brutal dictator asshole in Georgia who all along was talking about ethnically cleansing Ossetia, he finally does (in the middle of the night) and kills about 2000 people, mostly innocents. THERE WERE US CASUALTIES ON THE GEORGIAN SIDE and Cheney was there overseeing military exercises a week beforehand. Russia responded a full 24 hours after the start of the attack, and yet all western media has maintained that it was Russian aggression, and now we've basically kicked Russia out of the western "clubs." We stick a bunch of missiles and radar in Poland facing Russia and Iran. Smell a war comin? MONEY MONEY MONEY.

Ah, and Iran, which Obama also has said "he is keeping the military option on the table" with. Practically half our navy is sitting outside Iran's front door as we decry their "militarism." The modern and peaceful nation of Iran exists as A REJECTION of western imperialism and militarism. The CIA had created a BRUTAL and massively exploitative government to suck the region's resources dry, the populace woke up and threw them out in 79, and the CIA is still bitter. Us with our 4000 nukes and the hundreds we've given to Israel have the nerve to try and get the world to starve the Iranian populace to death for pursuing 2% of the road to A nuclear bomb, namely nuclear energy, which the IAEA has never been able to demonstrate any willingness to acquire. AS WE ILLEGALLY INVADE EVERY NEIGHBORING COUNTRY.

Get ready for a draft. Practically the whole world is allied against us now. Obama and McCain are both very clearly supporting it. You all seem to be aware that the Iraq war is a complete illegal farce in every conceivable way, I'm not even going to go into it.

The US has become the worst kind of fascism, at least on par with babylon, rome, fascist Germany/Italy, and the worst stages of the USSR. PLEASE read the patriot act and THINK about it. ALL of the power rests in the hands of these international criminals and their propaganda has never been so advanced. My head is spinning trying to explain this to you, but I am sure of what I'm telling you.

PLEASE, before net neutrality is annihilated by mccain or obama (it makes NO difference in this instance as in all others), hit sott.net, democracynow.com, infowars.com, mparent7777-1.livejournal.com all day long and WAKE UP. Give them some money if you can, they're attacked by hackers and likely the CIA on a daily basis and are struggling to stay alive even while net neutrality lives. Grab utorrent and get in on the torrent community (conspiracycentral.net, thepiratebay.org) or google video if you have fast internet IMMEDIATELY and seek out the following documentaries.

Money As Debt will prove to you the manipulative and control-grid nature of the current western "capitalist" system. Monopoly Men will expose many of the criminals I've been mentioning and show how they created and funded BOTH SIDES of the world wars and the cold war. Endgame and Terrorstorm by Alex Jones will enlighten you beyond your wildest dreams, expose the NWO and make the world make a whole lot more sense. For 911 truth do yourself a favor and get Loose Change, Alex Jones' documentaries will cover it beautifully as well. Grab some of Alex Jones' radio broadcasts off of conspiracycentral or piratebay, they're daily and 4-hours long and the single best source of truth there is.

There is much much more but my head is spinning. Go after info about the kinds of things the Rothchilds have been giving money to this past century. Go after Codex Alimentarus. Check out the Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commision and Bilderberg white-collar-crime syndicates and note that McCain and Obama are involved in ALL of it. Go
after the reality of mercury and forced vaccination, go after the reality of GMO, cloning and Monsanto. It's all about CONTROL. CIA mind control made the soviets jealous. It's all connected. There is something VERY evil at work here, and its stated agenda is to turn us into willing slaves, mind-control us into drones to work and kill for the global elite, and our FOOD and our MONEY are the primary vehicles through which they can carry this out on us. They miss being able to be our divine-right kings when we couldn't read, so they've come up with a newer and sneakier way to use us.

STOP poisoning yourselves with their GMO, pesticides and herbicides, pharmaceutical "medicine," vaccines, cloned drugged animals and propaganda. The amount of chemicals coursing through the veins of the average American is truly sad.

PLEASE check out veganism for the sake of yourself and your planet. I consider going organic/whole/vegan the best choice I've ever made and it ties into all this QUITE a bit. Animal rights is only a small piece of it. Don't believe the lies the FDA and the Meat/Dairy lobbyists are forcing on you. Meat rots your colon and causes cancer, dairy cows all have leuchemia and other diseases and they have to be raped regularly. Cheese requires the stomach lining of a cow. American livestock are cloned, diseased and hormone-injected in a way that would make you cry if you only knew. You only need 20g of protein a day, not the 50 the FDA would have you believe (over-proteining causes cancer and sluggish body/mind), and can easily get it from plants. Meat and dairy have no vitamins. Dairy leeches calcium from your bones leading to osteoperosis, is toxic to children over 8 (it's for baby cows you know), messes up your stomach acid and clogs your arteries. They rip the beaks off of chickens, veal is babies stuffed in boxes their whole lives, pigs don't sweat, etc. etc. etc. There is POWERFUL big-money lobbying against veganism because there is BIG profit on exploiting animals and they DON'T CARE about your health. Our intestines are the shape of an herbivore's. We evolved to be ABLE to eat meat, but we should NOT. It is an expensive second-hand product, and Americans eating so much of it is starving millions of people in other countries who should be eating the grain we feed to our livestock. Not to mention shit like scientists cloning pigs with human DNA inserted so they have human organs for transplants. Have some compassion. Read this and never look back:
http://www.vegfamily.com/articles/statistics.htm

Independence and harmony with nature are gifts and an obligation that any human can attain. Grow your own food with your neighbors organically and exercise your right to bear arms NOW. Don't wait for another asshole like Obama or McCain to save you, EMPOWER YOURSELF AND YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS and their power will disappear. America is in for some seriously dark times, it is indeed collapsing, but if you prepare you will survive. Karma will reap a heavy heavy load on more belligerant and stupid members of the West, it's had it coming for a long time, and hopefully a harmonious and enlightened human society will emerge from its ashes. We can learn a lot from those places we call "third world." Meditate, go outside, take their power away. Thank you for reading this.
-Will

1) Mein Kampf/Project New American Century
2) 3rd Reich/43rd Administration
3) Reichstag fire/9-11
4) Austria (Anschluss)-Czechoslovakia (Munich
Agreement)-Poland/Afghanistan-Iraq-Iran
5) Enabling Act/Patriot Act
6) Gestapo/Blackwater/3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team
7) Weimar Republic bankruptcy/Federal Reserve bailout

Please consider this...

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:19:42 GMT

Viral Infucktions

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:12:05 GMT

Viral marketing. It’s become a buzzword that most people don’t understand, but more corporations are getting hot under the collar when they hear it. "I don’t know what this thing is Bob, but the kids love it!"

And if you haven’t heard the term before, or don’t know what it is... Well, I’m not going to explain it to you right now. I’ve worked on "viral" campaigns, so maybe at some point I’ll bite off a large enough chunk of time to spell out some of the techniques... Probably not. (Another well considered piece of advice from a very successful marketer that I know: most people who have had some success at this don’t have the time to explain how to do it. Those who do are often trying to reveal their MARKETING SECRET: pay attention to them, and give them money. SECRET REVEALED.)

Be that as it may, there are an increasing number of viral campaigns going on now, many of them funded by large corporations. Just yesterday I saw an ad on Myspace which read "CHOKEmate - satisfy your need." And which was laid out to look like some kind of horrific dating site ad. On Myspace, these are common, so I gave it little thought- except for the name. Was this some kind of auto-erotic asphyxiation thing? The hell?

I finally got curious enough to actually click on the damn thing, which I never do. And sure enough- it’s a promo for the upcoming movie CHOKE, (based- somehow?- on Chuck’s book.)

Good? Bad? Indifferent? Well- in a sense the ad worked. I had already seen an ad on TV and was vaguely aware the movie was coming out. I clicked on the ad, and now I have 2 points of contact- I am reminded that the movie exists. Now, based on the usual formula, I need to talk to my friends about it.

And here I am blogging about it. You see how this works?

Heaven help us.

Bitter Irony

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:30:15 GMT

In quite possibly the most heinous display of profiteering greed to hit livejournal users, garrish product advertisements will now adorn all basic journals (for logged out users or non-users alike). That's right - alongside your musings on pop culture, why that boy won't write you back, and political debate, SnorgTees will be stretching out their esurient fist, wagging its hunger in your face much less in the guise of a petition, but rather as a threat.

I am requesting that all white hat hackers and crackers and culture jammers and adbusters alike unite in a boldly defiant act of netizen sedition against this corporate catering. Post comments to this thread with contact info, and let's make our presence known.

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:16:32 GMT

The article this month on hipsters is the most accurate portrayal of American youth I have read to date.

Advertising of the Near Future. Beware.

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:31:38 GMT

I found this article on "cracked.com." It made me shake my head in sadness. Everyday, everyone's personal space gets smaller and smaller due to the ruthless tactics of ads and advertisers. When, and where, will it end?

Original article found here:
http://www.cracked.com/article_16434_5-creepiest-advertising-techniques-near-future.html

Homepage: http://www.cracked.com/

I also cut and pasted the whole article, if you wary surfers don't want to travel to another site. Article under the cut.

The 5 Creepiest Advertising Techniques of the (Near) Future

By Nathan Birch

You'll be exposed to around 6,000 marketing messages today. But as pervasive as it is now, marketers are working hard behind the scenes to make sure it's much, much worse in the future.

You'll be exposed to around 6,000 marketing messages today, according to researchers. You're looking at a few right now. Glance away from your computer and you'll see another one--a label on a bottle, a logo on a t-shirt, a billboard outside the window.

But as pervasive as it is now, marketers are working hard behind the scenes to make sure it's much, much worse in the future. Doing things like ...

#5. Tracking Every Site You Browse and Every Show You Watch

Market research used to be pretty simple. You'd just put the new hamburger in front of a group of people and had them fill out a survey asking if they liked it, didn't like it and what degree of diarrhea it gave them. The problem of course was nobody told the truth on those things. For instance, they'll fill out surveys saying they want healthier food on the menu, then will continue to buy the Baconator.

So how's a poor market researcher supposed to get a straight answer out of you? Easy: Just collect the data of your personal habits without you ever knowing. It's kind of like the dude who sneaks around outside your wife's window at night, only they're peering in through your computer or TV screen instead, and hopefully there's less masturbating.

What They're Doing:

So for instance, your TiVo grants you the miracle of watch-on-demand television and skippable ads, but also tracks what you watch, right down to which scenes you rewound and replayed over and over.

But of course the web is light years ahead of TV in tracking your surfing habits. Google is already working on customizing its search results based on your personal browsing history, which requires only that it maintains a comprehensive database of every single thing you've ever tried to find on the web.

No big deal, right? After all, it's not like it would be embarrassing for you if all this information ever got out. You know, like when AOL made that information public on millions of its customers.

Speaking of AOL, they own a company called Tacoda which specializes in "behavioral targeting." Tacoda's technology is used on around 4,000 websites (which reach around 70 percent of the total internet audience). Every letter typed, every click or move of the mouse on the websites they're associated with is tracked, and they're hardly the only player in this game.

Oh, and how about BuzzMetrics? blogs, Facebook pages, message boards, chatrooms, Usenet groups--anywhere the internet denizens can post their leet-speak-filled opinions--are being monitored. The conversation is then fed into programs that calculate the current buzz or trends. Yes, believe it or not, that 20-page debate between two 13-year-olds about whether Batman could beat up Iron Man will help dictate what next year's marketing campaign will look like.

If You Think It's Bad Now...

Pretty soon, that technique for tracking your habits will become just as common in the real world.

Those awesome GPS boxes for your car that prompt you with turn-by-turn directions? They also keep track of where you're going (maybe you heard the government wants to use the data to tax you, according to your driving habits).

They're developing refrigerators with the super-handy feature that it tracks what you have inside, reminds you when you're out, and lets you order more without leaving the house. Oh, also, it lets retailers track every single thing you buy, all via RFID chips embedded in the product packaging.

Hell, they're even coming out with a wide range of "smart clothes" with computer functions built in that can track all of your bodily functions. Soon vital data on testicular bunching, shifting and chafing can constantly be beamed straight from your boxers to a team of guys looking at a diagram of your nuts.

#4. Custom-Made Shilling

The tricky thing about advertising is that no one ad appeals to everybody. Car companies run those ads every Christmas where it shows a dude buying his wife a new car as a gift, knowing that only a small sliver of the people who'll see it have the cash to give a $40,000 present, and that the rest couldn't even afford one of those huge red bows.

What They're Doing:

Companies like Visible World are out to solve that problem, looking to make personalized ads. These spots can be broken into interchangeable segments that can be recombined by your cable company based on data they've collected. It gives them countless variations on the same commercial, to carefully target them based on what they know about you.

So the high-income family may get an ad showing a man buying his wife a new diamond necklace, while the poor family next door will get the same ad except, but maybe with an added bit where the guy sells a kidney so he can afford it first.

If You Think It's Bad Now...

Remember what we said about the refrigerator that keeps track of what brands you buy? Think how much advertisers will pay for that data. They can display the ads right on your fridge.

Or, even better, maybe your cell phone rings, you answer it and it's Starbucks offering you $1 off on a white chocolate, pumpkin and whiskey Frappuccino. Why that's what you always order, and you just passed a Starbucks a second ago. Thank the GPS in your phone, and Starbucks tracking your buying habits.

Of course, we're talking about a distant, hypothetical future here. And by that we mean they intend to have that exact program up and running in a year or two.

What could be creepier than that? Well Google realizes all that data they're collecting is limited to web-surfing habits. Why stop there? Luckily they've got a prototype system that will listen to the conversation going on around your computer and add it to their database.

Really, what could go wrong?

#3. Fusing Ads and Culture

Advertisers figured out a long time ago that marketing takes more than simply telling us how great the product is, particularly when selling to the youngsters. Gone are the days when you could just stick a nicotine-addicted Fred Flintstone on TV during prime time and expect to have father, mother and junior all rush out to indulge in the rich full-bodied tobacco flavor of Winston cigarettes.

No, doing that still involves making some kind of argument in favor of the product, and that can be extra hard if your product is shitty. So how do they get around that?

What They're Doing:

The goal for marketers these days is to make their product an accessory to a certain lifestyle so that it becomes almost a requirement.

Take Mountain Dew, for instance. For years they went with odd, vaguely sexual sounding slogans, ("Dew It To It" and the near-pornographic classic "Mountain Dew ... It'll Tickle Your Innards") but eventually decided to latch themselves onto the burgeoning extreme sports culture.

Suddenly you couldn't turn on your TV without seeing some guy doing something incredibly retarded and dangerous with a Mountain Dew logo pasted on him. What does the drink have to do with sports? Not a damned thing. The shit isn't Gatorade. It's a completely arbitrary connection, and just to prove that point, Mountain Dew later attached itself to the absolute other end of the lifestyle spectrum: video games.

Why not? It works. Today, despite it tasting like piss mixed with orange drink, Mountain Dew is the most popular soft drink after Coke and Pepsi.

If You Think It's Bad Now ...

So you think you've got an alternative lifestyle? Are you a vegan? A punk rocker? A furry? Pedophile? It doesn't matter, within a couple of years, there will be a collection of brands that everyone in your group will cling to as part of their identity.

"Bullshit!" some of you say, "I'm an iconoclast, I'm hip and I reject your mainstream culture! You can't market to me."

Actually, your attitude makes you a member of a very lucrative and sought-after marketing segment. Just ask the makers of Jones Soda and Converse Chuck Taylors, they'll tell you where the money is.

In fact, if you want to see your future, look no further than current "urban" culture, most of which has been carefully concocted in corporate offices about 100 stories up from street level. They've got the process refined to a science. Watch as they took the most rebellious, disconnected, anti-mainstream culture possible (say, a young underground rap group singing about things like "a bloodbath of cops, dyin' in LA") ...

... and turned on the money hose. Before you know it, that fresh-faced young man at the bottom of the picture has a $100 million a year empire, his rappers signing endorsement deals with companies like Reebok and VitaminWater (which is in turn owned by Coca-Cola).

Repeat the process with other acts, to the point that corporate sponsorship becomes intertwined with the culture itself. Soon, something that began as the ultimate counterculture in the poorest New York neighborhoods will mutate the point that artists will rap without irony about how great a particular corporation's sneakers are, and how you should buy multiple pairs.

#2. Going Undercover

So what can a person do in this environment? Dismiss all ads as lies and spin? How would such a person make their buying decisions? Well, by trusting their peers. They'll roll their eyes at a vodka ad on TV, but if their buddy declares it to be "the shit" 30 times in an evening before passing out on the kitchen table, there's a good chance they'll be convinced it's worth trying.

After all, it's not like marketers are going to, you know, hire people to pretend to be your peers and recommend things to you, right?

What They're Doing:

Oh, you know better than that by now. They call it undercover marketing. This is why virtually every product on Amazon.com, no matter how shitty, has that one really articulate, wildly positive review. This is why even horrible movies will have an early "leaked" review turn up on AintItCool.com, echoing all of the points from the marketing campaign ("Stallone is back ... and better than ever!").

The marketers hire plants to generate buzz anywhere they can, in user reviews, on messageboards, in chatrooms ...

If You Think It's Bad Now ...

... at bars, in clubs and parties. That's right, undercover marketing is oozing into the real world.

So, say an attractive girl walks up to you in the street, tells you she's from out of town and asks if you would take a picture of her in front of a local landmark. As your brain desperately races to come up with something witty to say to her, you raise the camera to take the picture and notice that it's actually pretty damn nice. They just got you. That girl was hired by Sony to promote the new camera you're holding.

Sound paranoid? Well it turns out Sony has been doing it for years.

That type of advertising will only get more and more common and people will become more and more resistant to traditional ads. If you thought those "Hey, you're cute! Come check out my webcam!" spam emails were irritating, wait until you start running into their real-life equivalent in bars.

It's the ultimate evolution of advertising, to make the ads completely indistinguishable from regular human interaction. These will be regular folks on the street or sitting at their computers. Or maybe they'll even get you in on it. You can sell your next-door neighbor something and then he'll turn around and sell you something else right back. Marketers want to do the unthinkable: They want to make all of us one of them.

#1. Getting In Your Head

So, how much more invasive can marketing get? They watch what we buy and eat and read and wear. What are they going to do, follow us into the shower?

What They're Doing:

Hey, good idea! Moen gave a group of people money to allow them to watch them shower for weeks, to examine their every move (the study hilariously concludes that "Consumers frequently have only one free hand to use in the shower ... ").

But at least those people knew they were being watched. Companies like EnviroSell have the job of lurking around stores and carefully watching people's habits as they shop (one conclusion they spotted: when one customer accidentally brushes the ass of another customer, they tend not to buy anything).

Well that's about as creepy as it gets, right? Where else could they possibly stick their nose?

If You Think It's Bad Now ...

Well, how about inside your skull? Tracking our habits is all fine and good, but for ad men it's not enough. They need to know, not just what you buy, but why you buy it.

Behavioral economists and scientists have teamed up to
perform brain scans on volunteers to figure out just what makes the "buy it now" part of your brain light up. They want to know which neurons in your brain fire when ads are effective and which neurons fire when they're not.

At that point, all advertisers need to do is find out what subconscious cues it takes to make their product slip right past the part of you that thinks through buying decision before reaching for your wallet. Though it seems like they could have saved a few million dollars and just stuck some boobs in the ad, but, hey, it's their money.

Nathan Birch also writes the invasively cute webcomic Zoology.

Enjoy (the mental break-down!)

~~Nick

John Zerzan’s conferences in Montreal (May '08): Introduction + videos

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 02:48:10 GMT

"John Zerzan is one of the most interesting contemporary thinkers in the United States, at least. Like everything else in life, in order to fully appreciate Zerzan’s contribution to epistemology or the philosophy of civilisation, first, one has to read his work and hear his conferences – for, here, I only present my personal interpretation of his theory – and second, consider the context through which his voice and energy resonate. His contribution becomes even more impressive in light of the processes of Western institutionalisation of Thought and commodification of Knowledge – a totalitarian context that tolerates no challenge (philosophical or otherwise) that would threaten “the American way of life”.

http://layla.miltsov.org/introduction-to-z

Ads for Credit Cards.

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 21:03:47 GMT

Extract from Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Shit? Volume 2.

'Don't put it off, put it on'. Let's be clear about this: there is absolutely nothing wrong with putting things off.

'Things get more exciting when you say "YES"'. That's right: seize the day!

Your life is not exciting enough, quite simply, because you haven't borrowed enough money. That much should be self-evident. Borrowing money may make you taller. You will have a nicer smile, and have read more books - while still finding time for that all-important jet-skiing holiday. It's possible that, by borrowing more money, you can end all wars. Certainly if you get one of Bono/American Express's Red Cards (where a tiny percentage of your capricious spending is forwarded on to the poor, starving African babies) and you spend, spend, spend enough with it - you know, really absolutely totally ruining yourself - you could end famine. All of this while living in a cool contemporary apartment drinking crisp white wine.

This is the abiding message of ads for credit cards. In 2005, posters for HSBC credit cards bore the slogan 'Magical Christmas Cards'. So that's 'magical' meaning 'running up large debts so that more of your money ends up with the banks'. It's magic only in the sense that it involves a trick.

We should trust our banks: they look after our money and everything. Yes, they make more every month from skanking people with late payment fees than you are likely to earn in your entire life, but that's only fair. With the UK public clearly in the middle of a cash crisis, still the adverts offering more credit come thicker and faster. Anyone would think the only way our economy is remaining afloat is by getting everyone to embrace really quite terrifying levels of financial insecurity - borrowing squillions to buy tat, and driving up house prices and rents with mortgage-mad buy-to-let mania (Britons owe over a trillion in mortgage debt alone). Britain is booming! Don't let your fear of bailiffs spoil it. Do bailiffs give you a new Audi and a spangly top? They do not. Credit does. So I know which side I'm on.

It's amazing how early you can start getting the plastic habit. Mastercard's new Splash card even entices under-18s to get involved. This despite cases like the 19-year old who sought help from the Consumer Credit Counselling Service because he had £48,000 of debt with 19 lenders. The debt of Panama before reaching your 20s? Now that's a reason for teen angst.

Mastercard have defended the Splash card by saying it's the parents who control the limit and spending. Sadly, though, that would be the same parents who are working 70 hours a week because they owe eight billion pounds to credit card companies because they kept saying YES to trinkets and baubles because 'they are shiny'. Kids would be better off saying NO and shipping their parents off to Dr Tanya's House of Big Spendaways. Or get that Supernanny woman to put the shits up them.

Posted to powerswitch and adbusters (see the website for Bratz, 'Having one of those days?' advertising, Che Guevara Merchandise and Election Planes).

anti pop

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:07:41 GMT

Welcome to thee Pissbass.

in a reaction to the current state of speedbass/breakcore has arrived thee pissbass. often recorded at 10 or 0 bpm, Pissbass usually uses other speedbass or soft rock tracks and distorts thee orginal track in as many ways as possible, often picthing down thee orginal track as low as possible before putting it through a 8bit filter. timestrecthing tracks to 20-30 minutes in length and multitracking on top ov other Pissbass tracks to create "Piss-up" Mega-mixing.

the sound of Pissbass is here, its not shit - its piss.

dowload the choas

new ads promote cancer. sort of.

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:08:11 GMT

"The benefits of moderate UV exposure outweigh *any* potential risk."

Say WHAT? So says Sarah Longwell, a representative of the Indoor Tanning Association.

"The dermatologists, the sunscreen and cosmetic industries have tried to say that somehow moderate tanning causes melanoma, which is just not true."

I can't believe it! Those dastardly dermatologists and their little henchmen in the sunscreen industry are just lining their pockets and getting rich trying to prevent skin cancer! Those... bastards?

According to ABC News, the Indoor Tanning Association is ignoring 50 years of research, everything that dermatologists have been saying, advice from your mom, and all common sense, and is launching a new ad campaign to promote the benefits of baking yourself under UV light.

It's important to have UV light, they say, because UV light causes the skin to produce vitamin D, which is vitally important in preventing osteoporosis, rickets, and a whole list of other bad stuff.

Now, this is actually true. Vitamin D is good for you, and having too little of it will make you sick and weak. But do you know how else you get vitamin D? Walking around in the daytime. Putting milk on your cereal. Eating the salmon sushi for lunch. You don't need to barbeque yourself in order to prevent osteoporosis, dumbass.

[A visit to their website is a stupefying gallery of EPIC FAIL-- including this awesome paper (warning: PDF) that insinuates that the British government wants to keep its citizens from enjoying the sunlight.]

-----------------------------
Health issues aside, there's also the fact that tanning causes wrinkles, premature aging, weird spots and makes your skin look like a reptile.

Me personally, I'd rather look like

when I'm 60,

than look like

when I'm 40.

Ten Years Into The Digital Revolution: A Continuing Disaster in Sound

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:17:49 GMT

Once the inventors of CD-Sony and Philips got the "perfect sound forever" digital hype going- and believe me they did a masterful job with a well oiled public relations organization called "The Compact Disc Group", there was no stopping it. Even the executives at the quality record labels (I wish I could name names) who at first resisted CD, hearing it for the sonic joke that it was, finally rolled over when they realized that consumers were willing to shell out $16.00 for teeth rattlingly bright, metallic sounding discs because the music was "read" by a laser beam.

When the promoters of this early sonic hell began getting complaints, they had the chutzpah to blame the awful sound on the analogue source material! "Its 'headbump' ", "its the rising high end of the microphones"- there was an excuse for every problem with early digital, except the real cause: early digital! Every technology has a learning curve, except of course digital sound, which was a gift from God, who is of course, digital.

The early DDD discs sounded even worse (still do). What digital maniacs who pronounced those "pure" digital discs "perfection" didn't know was that since there were no digital mixing boards in the early days, the digital recording had to be converted to analogue for mixing, before going back to digital, and then sometimes once more back to analogue before final mastering. Each digital to analogue conversion took its toll on the music, but don't tell that to the CD nerds who only bought DDD discs in the early days and complained (and still do!) about the sound of discs that had "A"s in them!

[…

Source: Music Angle

interesting.

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 03:11:15 GMT

This is a propaganda video put out by a Scientology front organization against the evils of Psychiatry/Psychology.

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 18:48:06 GMT

Check out this well done campaign.

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:36:06 GMT

Oh hey guys remember to save the internet today.

Contribute

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 13:20:55 GMT

Hey everyone.

I am currently in a philosophy & film class. I created this live-journal account so that I can create an on-going project documenting what I learn, my observations, and other such things. It can get pretty interesting. I'll go into topics such as art, philosophy, propaganda, mass consumerism, films, photography, self-identity, and a lot of other stuff. I would love for all of you to contribute, as well. Add me as a friend and I'll add you back. I might add a few of you now. I want to know what you guys have to say about my thoughts on my journal. You can disagree, you can hate me, think I'm delusional, contradict me, find contradictions in what I say, agree with me, anything. Anything would be great. Please consider it. Thanks a lot.

New blog address obesity and junk food industries

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 22:49:40 GMT

I just added this feed to LJ and figured this community would take interest.

bigfatscoop is a weekly-updated blog that focuses on the growing rate of obesity and calls into question the marketing practices that got us there. It features relevant news stories as well as commentary by Dewey Caruthers, who has spearheaded many anti-tobacco and anti-obesity countermarketing campaigns in public schools.

There is an added focus on the activities of what Caruthers has termed Big Fat Industries (think Big Tobacco)—the manufacturers of junk food and soft drinks who use questionable tactics to seduce consumers, especially children.

Whether you think America's economy, health care system and society as a whole is in grave danger, or you think the issue is discriminatory and blown out of proportion (pun intended), here's a place where you can join the debate.