The Culture Jamming Phenomenon

Culture jamming is the art of using mass media to state an opinion against pop culture. Culture jamming is legitimate, but the use of it by amateur revolutionaries has made it a thing to be frowned upon. Modern culture jammers hold a blind eye to the fact that they themselves are becoming a noticed social group.

Culture jamming can be legal if used in a proper and organized fashion. For example, in the late 90’s a UK-made TV show titled Brass Eye featured dark and sad episode full of satire to demote “the perfect family” image used in most shows. Other legal examples include Google bombing. Google Bombing is the act of creating a web page with an exact title as that of a popularly searched word, or phrase on Google. For example, the words “miserable failure” are entered into the Google search engine, the first result would be a biography of United States president George W. Bush.

There are far more illegal culture jammings than there are legal ones. Almost everywhere you look you can see an example of culture jamming. It can be on billboards, street posters, and in some countries on the internet. The defacing of billboards and street signs can lead to some consequences, usually a small fine. Popular targets for culture jammers include Ashley Simpson because of her lip-syncing at the live airing of a Saturday Night Live episode. Other targets include Usher, McDonalds, and Microsoft.

A popular symbol for culture jammers is Che Guevara. Although most culture jammers are not communist they believe in Che as a god-like symbol. They believe in his never ending effort to rebel and accomplish his dreams.

A very famous internet celebrity that is a hero to many culture jammers is George Ouzounian, also known as Maddox. Maddox runs a site in which he produces rants about various things ranging from top worst songs to posting hate mail he receives. Maddox’s website, www.maddox.xmission.com, has been declared illegal