Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge - and Why We Must

by Kalle Lasn

America is no longer a country but a multimillion-dollar brand, says Kalle Lasn and his fellow "culture jammers". The founder of Adbusters magazine, Lasn aims to stop the branding of America by changing the way information flows; the way institutions wield power; the way television stations are run; and the way the food, fashion, automobile, sports, music, and culture industries set agendas. With a courageous and compelling voice, Lasn deconstructs the advertising culture and our fixation on icons and brand names. And he shows how to organize resistance against the power trust that manages the brands by "uncooling" consumer items, by "dermarketing" fashions and celebrities, and by breaking the "media trance" of our TV-addicted age. A powerful manifesto by a leading media activist, Culture Jam lays the foundations for the most significant social movement of the early twenty-first century -- a movement that can change the world and the way we think and live.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Sociology, Economics, Philosophy, Cultural, Business

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Estonian-Canadian film maker, author, magazine editor, and activist

Reviews

[Mario the lone bookwolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the innovators of the path toward peaceful, passive resistance

Inspired movements
The book certainly had an indirect influence on peaceful protest movements and can be seen as part of laying the cornerstone of a new, emancipated civic movement. After explaining the system's bugs, Lasse shows another, better path in the form of emancipation from the dictates of brands, media, and consumption.

So many tools for action
Already in 2000, when the book was first published, there were many progressive ideas. People developed and develop new protest options with Adbusters, broadcast signal intrusion, flash mobs, clown armies, tactical media, communication guerrillas, passive resistance, media pranks, subvertising, art interventions, occupy movements, pirate parties, hacktivism, anti enterprising, tactical frivolity, strikes, graffiti, meme hack, street art, billboard hacking, etc.

Each ad possibly going viral differently than one expected
What new and great can and will be done with social media and techniques still to invent is hard to guess. One option would be to react immediately to the new advertising messages of the corporations. As soon as it is released a cynical and biting persiflage is massively promoted in all social media so that no company can be free of the fear of a shitstorm and the detection of new grievances with every advertisement. The only option would be to change the corporate principles to sustainability so that there is no longer any evidence that shows the bigotry.

Disproportionate punishment
Yarn bombing is harmless, but the punishments are not. Anyone who quietly protests with colorful fabric figures can expect problems. Spraying graffiti on public goods, changing posters, passive resistance in open spaces, etc. are all seen and punished as severe offenses and crimes, and that says much about the mentality of the constitutional state and whom it protects and serves too. Business criminals, sex offenders, and frauds may face lower penalties than activists who are portrayed as dangerous usurpers, troublemakers, subversives, and delinquents.

New laws to reduce criticism
Instead, the attention attracted by such actions could be the reason for the draconian approach. It will be interesting to see whether the alteration and use of advertising messages on the Internet will sooner or later also become a criminal offense so that logos and trademarks can no longer be used for biting satire. Maybe under a similar disguise as already done with conservationists and critics of globalization, because corporations and their distribution network "are essential infrastructures for maintaining order", criticizing them is being criminalized.

Preemptive online policing
Too polemic? Peaceful, civil protest is more and more restricted, under terror suspect, legally more difficult, and silenced or denounced in the leading media. It would be only a logical and consistent continuation to do the same on the internet and on social media. Still, just the forums, comments, and posts,... are censored. However, who says that operators can´t be compelled by law to pass data of critical users to the state to protect the constitution? Alternatively, whoever claims that certain people's representatives and their behavior are stupid or detrimental to the public interest, is immediately on the watchlist.

Overreacting because the truth is controversial
Humor and satire have always been efficient and dreaded instruments which is the reason why many ossified, institutionalized organizations just laugh about superficial jokes and others, but never about themselves and are offended instead. At the core of the amusement is the hidden, mentioned malady, which the concerned persons are unable to realize. They are incapable of reflection and self-criticism because of the one-dimensionality of their thinking and because they do not allow other opinions and views. They tend to an aggressive overreaction when the grave mistakes of their worldview are ridiculed to show logical errors. The state apparatus behaves like a spoiled, defiant child or an immature adult.

The right to satirize every institution
The procedures can create a new awareness of the bigotry of established players and if every new message, news, political idiot twaddle, etc. is critically questioned, nothing is believed and everything is ridiculed, the right path is taken. The authority over any dictates of fashion, politics, or economics must fall. Moreover, it´s essential to expose them and their lies, to modify them, and to throw them back at them right in their faces until only more ethical trading companies dare to spread their advertising messages.

A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real-life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_d...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grassroots
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...

[Colin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Naive, self-indulgent, and hypocritical. The author makes a couple anemic attempts at a cogent analysis of consumerism before giving up and lapsing into a loose recital of silly and self-congratulatory schemes. After reading Mediated and Nation of Rebels, both of which offer startling insights, this book is only memorable for being aggravating.

[Lesha F. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed me.

The bad reviews surprised me at first, but then, on second thought, not so much. I read this book when I was 19 or 20, I think. Now, at 26, I think I'd like to re-read it to see if it still excites me so much. Who knows?

Regardless, I'll keep my 5-star rating because it really enabled me to change my perspective. Generally speaking, American media is more problematic than it seems, and less entertaining than it seems. I'm less militant now than I was when I was 20. I don't feel guilty about an hour of hospital drama once a week (with commercials) but I am also able to step back and think a little when I start drooling over an IKEA catalogue.

Also, fortunately or unfortunately, I think the solution to the "suicidal consumer binge" is simpler than writing legislators, protesting corporations, and signing petitions. Consumerism is inversely proportional to the price of oil--so there you go.

[Kendall · Rating 4 out of 5]

great concepts in this book. if you've ever been interested in the messages adbusters presents (buy nothing day, anti corporate takeover of america generally), it's a good read. I especially appreciate being introduced to the french situationists in this book. if anyone knows of any good books about that movement, please let me know! though it was written in 1999, this book is relevant now more than ever. let me know if you're interested in learning more about it... the concept of Culture Jamming appeals to me. call me if you want to team up and jam shit.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a lot of issues with this book but then it was written in 1999.
Some things were good. Lasn wrote a lot about the Situationists, I had heard of them but didn't realize the extent of their work. I want to read more about Guy Debord now. He wrote well about the 1886 legal ruling Santa Clara that gave corporations the same rights as private citizens, effectivly opening a Pandora's box of problems that are still spiralling out of control.
But some things are just bad: his repeated cariacatures of North American citizenry as a brain dead TV nation just don't ring true to me. I would have liked more analysis of why he thinks this culture isn't engaged politically. He has a chapter in the middle where he explains what culture jammers are NOT: feminists (seems they are all whiners with tunnel vision and a lamentable victim mentality); 'academics' (ok); or 'leftists' (who he characterizes as a bunch of confused old hippies who just make the real jammers look bad and discredit all liberal politics)---I guess he thinks these groups are all monoliths. He just sounds out of touch.
He goes on to suggest some ways to jam culture; many of which sound like simply antagonism of retail/service and telemarketing workers. He goes on to observe that the 'agents of the system' are not the system itself--which is contradictory when he's also advocating people to leave trash at ToysRUs or to harangue telemarketers--what on earth does he think this would accomplish?
I know I suffer from the bone deep cynicism that he attributes to all "slackers"--or as he calls everyone born from 1965 through 1980: "the malaise generation". He mentions later that the real targets are the men who attend the G-7 (at that time)--this could be my cynicism talking but i seriously doubt that getting the ear of ANY of the world leaders would do ANY good, even if they gave a shit about ANY of these issues.
For analysis I liked the documentary "the Corporation" a lot better as it describes multinational globalized commerce as it seems to be: a lumbering monster intent on the destruction of everyone without prejudice--I just feel like Lasn again seems just naive.
FInally, he angered me with some 'fashist' dogma (about the fashion industry) that made an analogy between Calvin Klein and someone turning out your teenage daughter as a prostitute, and how angry that would make you and all your 'big armed friends'. You can kind of see why he doesn't need feminism any more, clearly his views on women, teenagers, sexuality and sexual agency--and 'big armed' men as the protectors of the above--is all just SUPER.
I read the whole book in jury duty. It did keep me awake.

[Interzone · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually worked with a very nice lady who made a documentary on a group that this book has inspired. Culture Jamming is for some strange reasons virtually unknown thus creating greater reactions to it.

Overall I find myself in total agreement when it comes to a few ideas that this author suggests and agree totally over the uninvited invasion that commercials present us with on a daily basis.

Truely an eye opener to the green veins that run through the heart of America and soon the rest of the world. What it breaks down into is that you may have a television, and with that you may have cable, you pay a fee and in exchange you get a service. That service is ridden with commercials that you do not give consent to. In truth, you pick out a show yet you have no control over what commercials it will chose to play. Companies such as Coors Beer Products airing commercials during cartoons, or Viagra commercials during family sitcoms is simply unacceptable and yet you the viewer have no control over it. Its pretty strange for a high schooler, a demographic who has no need for viagra, to be so familiar with the product that they can name off its price without a thought.

One last mention. Has anyone ever noticed how much business, in this case McDonalds, look like brainwashed followers? I hate to type the word, yet they all look like nazis. Wearing their uniforms with Golden Arches on their sleeves, name tags with their names and ranks, all saluting the American flag which flies ever so proudly in the backdrop, all the meanwhile dressing their faces with a smile. No flaws in their teeth, no piercings let alone tattoos. It breaks down into essentially into propaganda. Besides, most of McDonalds commercials air during, once again, cartoons. This demographic holds no ability of purchasing power. Its simple brainwash, and when done from an early age its technically training...just like the nazi youth groups.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Culture Jam was written in 2000, and reading it in 2010 is both illuminating and an exercise in frustration. The thesis of the book is essentially summed up on page 114: "Inegalitarianism and exclusiveness are not cool. First World opulence is not cool. A culture that keeps hyping people to consume more is not cool. America is not cool. And the people who fall for the hype are the worst kind of uncool: They're suckers." I agree with Lasn on many points and think that it must have been ground-breaking for him to release such a tome at the height of our collective obsession with wealth and status symbols. The disheartening part is to reflect on his ten year old battle cry and see that even after a global financial crisis, we citizens remain basically inert and indifferent to the consumer culture that sucks us dry. If ever the public were going to take to the streets around this issue (and the Tea Party doesn't count, as they are essentially anti-culture jammers), it would have been in the past two years. So I'm left feeling cynical at the end of the book, wondering will anything ever change?

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

We read this book for English, and it presents a(possibly) unique and very biased perspective on America, and the way we are becoming corrupted. I agree with a small portion of the things in this book, and I think some of us do need to realize that we need to change some things. If you pair this book along with a disturbing video called Generation "Like", the book 1984, and a TED talk about changing education (what we did in English class), Lasn has a very good argument, but I wouldn't go so far as to completely agree with everything he says, because he is a little melodramatic (but does me saying that prove his point?). One of Lasn's points was that if you say you're not in a cult, you are. Also, America has become a company, and our main interest now is advertising and making money.
This book opens up a lot of controversial ideas, and you could probably argue with it for years. Possibly one of the most interesting things I've read in an English class.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and passionate argument for living more authentically, and not automatically swallowing corporate American infobabble and consumerism without thinking about the consequences of doing so. It's kind of sad that this book is already dated, as it was written about 10 years ago....maybe Lasn should put out an updated version? That would be pretty cool. He's probably pretty busy with Adbusters, though!

[Randy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Supremely quick read that introduces the 'revolution' that Kalle Lasn is trying to seed with Adbusters magazine. Really, I recommend Adbusters more than this book if you're going to donate money his way. And definitely not the anti-sweathshop shoes with the blackspots on them -- they look really unfashionable. Can we have anarchy while not having to wear ersatz Converse? (Check the website)

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting if you want to read a Situationist manifesto, not so much if you're looking for a book detailing why America's consumer culture is, economically, heading to a bad end.

I found it somewhat funny that this is a booklong ad for AdBusters. It's made me go from loving them to somewhat hating them for their disingenuity.

[Greta · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a naive, utopian dream. With a touch of boomer rage typical for rebellious teenagers. Yes, our capitalistic world is rotten. No, it can’t be cured by drawing skulls on Calvin Klein ads.

[Sunil · Rating 1 out of 5]

Written in 2000, Mr. Lasn's screed manages to secrete the aura of an even older book. There are extensive passages decrying the evils of endless TV-watching (I know practically no one who watches more than a hour or so of TV a day, if that); the complex deluge of Lexis-goddamn-Nexis baffles and depresses him (Web 2.0 must surely have been his undoing); at one point, the reader is prompted to visit the Adbusters' website "on the World Wide Web," written out and in staggeringly un-ironic caps. By all of these, I cannot abide.

What's remarkable about Lasn and his movement is just how humorless and dour it is in almost stark parallel to the corporations he and it seek to dethrone. The ads featured and mentioned throughout the book are fairly puerile, unimaginative, and simplistic, more like the product of a 15-minute brainstorm by a cadre of edgy teenagers who are still a part of Debate Club. While on the line, would-be adbusters are advised to convince telemarketers to quit their jobs and charge the company calling for their time. There is no part of telemarketing that doesn't already feel like systematic dismemberment, and a caller -while admittedly disturbed in their own home- inflicting this kind of psychical damage on the brie-like psyche of the average telemarketer is tantamount to assault.

Lasn speaks of culture-jamming the way a minuscule group tries to defend Wild Wild West as a movie. The delusion is a little cringe-inducing at times. Culture-jamming was co-opted by the corporations and advertisers Lasn so reviles practically from its inception. It was never really, in most people's cultural memory, an actual thing.

It's difficult to say exactly for whom this book is really intended. For those who already know these things, it feels like an exercise in superiority. For those unacquainted with some of the facts, it's difficult to take them as facts given that Lasn appears to be writing from his gut, with little to no scholarly support. The chapter devoted to the French Situationalists of the '60s, Debord, and McLuhan is the lone exception.

While nearly all of Lasn's critiques are valid in their inception (in my personal worldview), he sees them through to an extent no one with any taste or an ounce of self-awareness is really willing to go. I suppose it's like that apocryphal "they" have said about Freud: he took the first steps, but he did it in clown shoes.

The dream is sort of dead, but maybe that's okay. Moreso than in 2000, authority has seen a more roundabout decentralization. Everyone and everything is up for grabs (and jabs); the sanctimonious -on either side- are fair game.

[Byron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Culture Jam is required reading for today's young malcontent. Ever found yourself wanting to jam a bent coin into the cart corral at Aldi, to protest having to pay $.25 just so you can go spend some more of your money on vegetables that were grown 1,800 miles from here? Then this is the book for you. Author Kalle Lasn really did once jam a bent coin into the cart corral at Aldi as a political protest. He describes it as his moment of awakening as a "culture jammer." No, really. Aside from petty vandalism, he was an experimental filmmaker who couldn't get the CBC in Canada to air a commercial he made about how the environment is being destroyed by corporations. He offered to pay just as much as corporate advertisers were paying for airtime, but they didn't like his ad's message. Tha fuck kind of bullshit is that? Culture Jam breaks down how marketing is destroying the natural environment, our bodies, our minds, and some of everything else, and how we should come up with own sort of anti-marketing to combat. 13 years ago it probably seemed even more retarded than it occasionally does now, but you can see how a lot of what he predicted is starting to come true, with the collapse of the economy, and uprisings all over the world, like #OccupyWallStreet. For someone who occasionally comes off as a nutty old hippy, it's amazing how much of what he said in this book has come true. Dude was on to something.

[Micki Rentauskas]

A lot like an extended essay with four parts, Lasn effectively argues his points and does reference a lot of facts and historical events. He is advocating for Adbusters of course, as he helped found it, so constant mention of it was expected. I had to analyze this an outrageous amount for an AP English independent reading assignment and weigh his logical, emotional, and ethical supports, and he did fairly well overall. He calls feminism an outdated cause though, which I took offense too, but perhaps he meant to say it's not exactly the needed social reform now. The book was written in 1999 too, before smartphones and the full extent of the "World Wide Web," so there'd definitely be an extra hundred or so pages of his ranting had this been written more recently. I enjoyed the book though, and will think twice before buying things or driving.

[Chris Ramirez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the authors observations about our culture of consumers and spectacle and i agree with the awareness he strives to create. He was certainly correct is his assessment that a meme war was where things were going as well. The one thing i have trouble with is this concept of somehow the society is going to stop working and just have fun and "live." Trust me, I know people who thought this way and lived this way (this book was written mid-late 90s) during that same period and now they're either miserable or dead. There are always going to be people that want to do as little as possible and people that want to do as much as possible and i always doubt that half of the other country that are complete morons would ever buy into a life of just living. I wish this guy would write a followup. Sadly, with things like instagram, things are far worse off than they were in the 90s.

[Martha☀ · Rating 2 out of 5]

K. Lasn is right on the money about so many consumer issues. I agree with pretty well everything he writes. Unfortunately, his "preaching to the choir" style does not make the reader think critically through his/her own consumer habits. Instead he makes you look down on those 'other people' who are more wasteful and frivolous than the reader. I suppose I was looking to be shamed into curbing my consumerist lifestyle, and I did not find that here.

[Darin Barry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should be required reading in high school. It examines the true costs of our addiction to consumption and how brand worshiping and cosumerism is destroying culture both here in the states and worldwide.

How can we uncool corporate messages before they do significant damage? This has some great answers.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book's vilification of the financial industry is, in retrospect, well justified, if not prophetic. Its other social critiques, caustic though they may be, are not far off either, in my own humble opinion. However, I think that any and all solutions will require compassion and humor, not merely a revolution. Lest we forget the old Beatles song.

[Darrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was another "many times read" book
this the offering of the Adbusters magazine folks
very influential to me - gave my copy away to an Amtrak employee on my way across America after my summer in Buffalo

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was recommended to me by a co-worker and I loved it a lot. It was also fun to discuss the topics in this book. It's a serious book concerning advertising culture and by no means it's law. Read this knowing it's the author's opinion and you should form your own opinion!

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

So poorly written and conceived, and yet, so well-liked...how odd.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great writing with a grand message. I could not agree more with Kalle's critique of modern American culture. A very quotable book.

[Bailey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Terrible book. I only read the first half, but I didn't agree with a thing that it said, and I hated every second that I spent on it. A really awful book.

[Lindsay · Rating 2 out of 5]

its cool when its just society if the spectacle but then sometimes it gets too “missed the point of fight club and thought it was all really cool.” but turning postmodern cynicism into actionable rage is cool. not so cool when he’s like “im not a feminist and you should yell at specifically women working in low wage service industries over the phone”

[Marshall · Rating 3 out of 5]

American consumer culture has certainly gotten out of hand. It had been accelerating heavily since the 80's, as consumer debt skyrocketed, television dictated public awareness, and corporate lobbying dictated public policy. Our culture was no longer something we participated in, but something we consumed. And just as there was a lash back in the late 60's against economic and political excesses, Kalle Lasn stood up in the late 90's and declared the next revolution.

Just as corporate media co-opted our culture, Lasn's goal was to co-opt the media, reverse the memes and fight back against the unquestioned marketing messages that poured into our brains. His theory was that it doesn't take much to reverse a meme--just a few well-placed messages, parodies of existing marketing ploys, and various demonstrations would be enough to build up the consumers' defenses against the incessant marketing. He created Adbusters to drive this revolution, and this book is his manifesto.

The messages of his organization and others like it got through to some people. They started questioning our consumer culture, and many even shifted their lifestyles, including me. But the revolution never came. Consumer culture kept chugging away, consumer debt continued to climb, and then the economy crashed. Will people learn this time? If so, I think a new strategy will be needed. Something more mature, more scientific, more organized, less outrageous.

There's so much I like about this book. The global economic pyramid scheme. The left has become part of the problem. Meme wars. Channeling rage to effect change. The abomination of democracy that is corporate personhood. Ecological economics. But his presentation of it is cursory and prone to hyperbole. It's long on emotion and short on details. It's about as substantive as a Michael Moore film. And I never much cared for anarchic culture jamming solutions, which always seemed more cathartic and amusing than revolutionary.

[Kitap]

The first agenda of the commercial media is, I believe, to sell fear. What the “news” story of a busload of tourists gunned down in Egypt and the cop show about widespread corruption on the force have in common is that they contribute to the sense that the world is a menacing, inhospitable, untrustworthy place. Fear breeds insecurity—and then consumer culture offers us a variety of ways to buy our way back to security. (p. 17)

The commercial media are to the mental environment what factories are to the physical environment. A factory dumps pollutants into the water or air because that’s the most efficient way to produce plastic or wood pulp or steel. A TV or radio station “pollutes” the cultural environment because that’s the most efficient way to produce audiences. It pays to pollute. (p.18)

This flood of psycho-effluent is spreading all around us, and we love every minute of it. The adspeak means nothing. It means worse than nothing. It is “anti-language” that, whenever it runs into truth and meaning, annihilates it. (p.20)

The new shock ads go straight to the soul. They aren’t clever or coy so much as deeply, morbidly unsettling. Advertising Age columnist Bob Garfield calls them ‘advertrocities.’ ... I think these ads are operating on a deeper level than even the advertisers themselves know or understand. Their cumulative effect is to erode our ability to empathize, to take social issues seriously, to be moved by atrocity. (p.23)

Information diversity is as critical to our long-term survival as biodiversity. Both are parts of the bedrock of human existence.... In all systems, homogenization is poison. Lack of diversity leads to inefficiency and failure. The loss of a language, tradition or heritage—or the forgetting of one good idea—is as big a loss to future generations as a biological species going extinct. (pp.25–6)

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in the early 2000's by the guy who started the Ad-Busters zine and who also had a hand in starting up the Occupy movement. This gives a good summary of his ideas leading up to forming Occupy.

He focuses a lot on messaging in our consumerist culture and using messaging/marketing techniques to challenge people out of their consumerist driven stupor.

Very good fundamental concepts of how important messaging is in activist work. He also contradicts himself sometimes by talking about how bad socialism is based on his negative experiences in Soviet dominated Eastern Europe as a child. He fails to either tell the reader or possibly has failed to make the distinction himself that socialism is not and never was Stalinism. This especially kind of grates when he talks about living in Canada. Last I knew Canada has quite a few socialist aspects to it. A little honesty on that level would have been appreciated. There are quite a few of us in America who'd like nothing better than to enjoy free healthcare and other attributes of that awful socialism he decries yet enjoys.

He also gets a little preachy. Often I had to just put the book down and read something else for awhile. Frankly the book is easy reading and can be plowed through in a matter of days. I just didn't always want to go back and trudge through it.

That being said, I highlighted and marked a lot of references he makes to other writers and thinkers that I will be looking up, he's a good resource for ideas, has a lot of experience in marketing to share and is a must-read I think for anyone who wants to get into the world of direct action for social change.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kalle Lasn talks about media and consumer culture.

The book is interesting, but I can't help but feel that time and the internet have largely made the book's basic argument mostly irrelevant. On one hand, we've got satellite and cable channels and media mergers that lead to more power for megacorporations. And yet -- individuals now have more choice and power than ever over the type of media they consume, and how they consume it. You don't want to watch the latest reality TV show? Fine, there are a thousand other choices, each of which has its own online community where you can go and talk to other people. Or maybe you want to avoid TV altogether: ok, you can still get news and information faster than ever before, in the way you want it. You don't have to wait for the daily paper or turn on CNN to get news updates: you can read a story from the Times of London or Al Jazeera, or go to any of a number of news discussion sites. You don't have to rely on a small number of magazines for in-depth analysis: there are any number of places that look at current events from any sort of perspective you can imagine.

I won't deny that megacorps keep getting bigger, and that does lead to some nasty consequences in terms of how our society is structred. But, if the focus of this book is on culture, we're living in a new world where it's remarkably easy to allow brands to determine all sorts of aspects of our life -- and a world where it's also remarkably easy to participate in huge communities in a way that independent from the agendas of international industry.

[Benjamin Atkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found Kalle Lasn to be a breath of fresh air; both in his informal writing style and his thorough research. His argument is powerful. He assert that today's consumer driven, fear-inspired, technologically saturated world is having troubling psychological and physiological effects on humanity. I do not like to go into detail but one tease is how many images we are bombarded by today versus 50 years ago. Obviously, today we are drowning in extremely powerful scientifically designed messages designed to hit us on multiple levels; both conscious and sub-conscious. This combined with cavalier manner in which our medical system passes out Ritalin, Concerta, Xanax, and a myriad of other "coping" medications is an clear recipe for mass hallucination. The most important portion of Mr. Lasn's brilliant expose is that he proposes solutions. So many societal critiques are comfortable with simply pointing out a host of problems and that is helpful. However, when I finished Culture Jam, I not only felt informed and had a powerful awareness of the world around me, I felt empowered to implement the various concrete solutions on how to dis-engage from these tsunamis of consumerism and unethical practices without turning to the Timothy Leary's "turn-on, tune-in, drop-out." Quite the opposite, he advocates strongly for staying in the fight. He implores the reader to nag their congressman etc. and start a grass-roots movement to slow our societies zeitgeist down a notch and stop being Pavlov's prize student. Four-and-a-half stars. I believe this is an important book.