Brandalism: The Medium is the Metaphor…and the Solution?

Sut Jhally’s sobering documentary, Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse, highlights the unflinching grip advertisers have on society, and the detrimental effects a consumer-based, capitalist culture has on our values, consciousness, and perhaps most disturbingly on the environment.  Advertisers continually encourage us to mindlessly enjoy the here and now via the consumption of material goods, and Jhally states that voices of concerned citizens are drowned by the “powerful voice of consumer capitalism, which speaks to us through the multi-billion-dollar megaphone of the advertising industry.” 

Resistance to this industry seems futile, considering the reach advertising media has into every nook and cranny of our lives.  I can hardly drive home to Illinois through the cornfields without billboard after billboard telling me that I need a McDonald’s burger, handmade chocolates, or a pitstop at Love’s to make the trip bearable.  Advertising media is unavoidable and the corporations behind them seemingly untouchable. 

But there is one movement thwarting corporations’ flamboyant billboard advertising, and not through outside protests but through the medium itself: brandalism.  Birthed in 2012 by two British artists fed-up with the saturation of advertising in London, brandalism exploits the lack of responsibility and transparency from corporations and politicians by vandalizing prominent billboards with “subvertisements.”  These subvertisements parody advertisements in a satirical fashion, pointing to the deeper societal and environmental problems that advertisers overlook.

The movement made waves on the internet after a stint in Paris during the 2015 UnitedNations Climate Change conference, where brandalists installed 600 satirical adds highlighting the paradox of polluting corporations sponsoring the conference, posing themselves as a part of an environmental solution when in reality they are the problem.  These subvertisements weren’t scrappy posters, they were designed by professional artists who installed them directly into the glass cases of the original adds.  Brandalist Joe Elan described their work as an act of literally “taking their [public] spaces back because we want to challenge the role advertising plays in promoting unsustainable consumerism.”

Brandalism contradicts the idea that the medium is the message, or in Postman’s case the metaphor.  When we see a billboard, we unconsciously expect a shameless promotion of a product, service, or corporation.  We have become so used to billboard advertisements that their consumerism-driven messages seem natural, no matter how twisted or dishonest they really are.  Brandalism occupies the medium of billboards to target consumers, but without the intention of selling or promoting anything.  Instead, brandalists want consumers to look at their billboards and do a double take.  They want consumers to think about what they’re seeing and to question it.  This method within the medium is far more nuanced than a heated public protest or rally, but the power of brandalism lies in the fact that it takes the meaning of the billboard medium and turns it on its head.  

Unsurprisingly, brandalism has gained little coverage from major news outlets and the overall effects of the movement are difficult to measure.  But brandalism shows that protests against socially and environmentally detrimental advertising does not always mean individuals marching and chanting with picket signs.  Brandalism protests from within the media of advertising itself and instead of shouting solutions it forces citizens to think and ask questions.

Whether or not brandalism can make a noticeable dent in the twisted advertising surrounding us today, it opens opportunities for analytical public discourse about a consumer and capitalist culture.  At the very least, it plants in consumers a healthy skepticism for advertisements and the corporations that drive them.  I can’t help but wonder if the critical analysis brandalism places on advertisements would satisfy Postman.  Perhaps he would prefer a book about it.

Postman & Kinder Eggs

At the end of his novel Amusing Ourselves To Death, Postman states that the solution to the degradation of the collective American mind through media consumption relies on “how we watch” TV.

I can only imagine his horror if he were around to observe how children are watching YouTube today.

As articulated in this article that circulated a couple years ago, children are spending hours upon hours on the supposedly child-friendly YouTube Kids app. Most of what they are watching are algorithmically-generated videos with nonsensical keyword-vomit titles like “Wrong Heads Disney Wrong Ears Wrong Legs Kids Learn Colors Finger Family 2017 Nursery Rhymes”. These videos often feature loved children’s characters like Elsa, Peppa Pig, and the cast of Paw Patrol, but--unlike the original cartoons--sometimes contain age-inappropriate, disturbing content: including depictions of violence, blood and injury, sexuality, and generally distressing scenarios/imagery. These videos are created not through an active effort to harm children, but though algorithmic recombinations of keywords.

The path to these strange knock-off videos starts with the original branded children’s content. For example, Peppa Pig has an official YouTube channel where one can find full-length episodes of the show. A child on the YouTube Kids app might very well be fine if they were to stick to this channel. However, if autoplay is turned on, or a child has the basic motor skills to click the “Recommended Videos” in the column to the right, these off-brand videos will start playing almost immediately.

To YouTube’s credit, they’ve removed a lot of the particularly disturbing and violent videos that were under fire in articles and Facebook parenting communities. The vast majority of these videos are not outright violent or harmful, however. They’re just weird, and I question how they could possibly be helpful for a young person’s development. A particularly significant trend is that of surprise egg videos, which often feature disembodied hands and voices unpackaging small plastic toys from chocolate eggs. An Intelligencer article about this quotes several parents that describe how their children watch these videos: there is no laughter or excitement or discussion of the content, only quiet, rapt attention.

Would Postman call this “entertainment”? I suppose it must be entertaining if its racking up so many views, but it lacks that florid Vegas glitz. These videos overwhelmingly consist of regular adults unwrapping ugly plastic trinkets under yellowish lights, or of low-quality, strangely-textured animation. If Sesame Street teaches kids to love television (rather than to love learning), what do YouTube videos teach kids? Is it still television? Is it harmless? What would Postman say that it means for the American mind?