Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing and the Erosion of Integrity

Description

For years the DIY punk / underground has worked against the logic of mass production and creative uniformity, disseminating radical ideas and directly making and trading goods and services. But what happens when the underground becomes just another market? What happens to cultural resistance when it becomes just another marketing platform? Unmarketable examines the corrosive effects of corporate infiltration of the underground - a lively, funny and much-needed look at what this means for activism, commerce and intebrity in a world dominated by corporations.

Anne Elizabeth Moore is a former co-editor of Punk Planet, the founding editor of the Best American Comics series, and the author of Hey Kidz! Buy This Book: A Radical Primer on Corporate and Governmental Propaganda and Artistic Activism for Short People. She has written for Bitch, the Chicago Reader, In These Times, The Onion, The Progressive, and Chicago Public Radio WBEZ's radio program 848. She lives in Chicago.

Praise for Unmarketable: "Conversational, intellectually curious, and charmingly ragged, Unmarketable is an anticorporate manifesto with a difference: It exudes raw coolness." -Mother Jones "Sharp and valuable muckraking." -Time Out New York "An intelligent, funny, and frequently dispiriting study of the ways in which the mainstream has repeatedly pillaged the underground, repackaging what they find before setting it afloat in the sea of mass consumption." -Bitch "One of the most profound insights Moore makes is that when activists use the same branding, marketing and even legal strategies as corporations, they in essence play on corporate terms." -Los Angeles Times "Engaging to read, yet don't lose sight of [Moore's] plea for integrity. Worth noting." -Booklist "Following in the grand tradition of Thomas Frank, Anne Elizabeth Moore has written a devastating account of the commercial penetration of alternative culture and its appalling implications. This book should be a must-read for everyone; it is a wake-up call for how freedom and integrity are considered commodities by those with no agenda except to make profits . . . and rule the world. " -Robert W. McChesney "If you thought regular advertising was manipulative, you should see its seedy underbelly. Anne Elizabeth Moore's investigation is unflinching and revelatory." -Michelle Tea "An informative, forceful, and humorous book." -Harvey Pekar