Commodify Your Dissent

Commodify Your Dissent, Thomas Frank and Matt Weiland (ed.), W.W. Norton, 1997

        This is a group of essays from an irregularly published magazine called "The Baffler."

        These aren't your average, everyday discussions of what it means to be "hip" or a "rebel". In fact, these are just the opposite. This is a book of scathing criticism of the encroachment of business into nearly every facet of everyday life. Among the subjects covered are: Details and Wired magazines making hip rebel consumers into heroes; corporate fads like reengineering; what Really happens to bands that signs with major labels; packaging a twenty-something first-time author as a serious literary artiste; labeling consumers in their 20s so that marketers will know how to target them for clothes, music, etc; the supposed death of the city as institution due to the cyber-revolution; edge cities, towns just outside major cities that are not yet cities themselves, but are more than suburbs; and Orange County, California, the wealthy, high-class myth and the fiscally bankrupt reality.

        I really loved this book. It's easy to read, it pulls no punches, and it should give marketers and admen all over America some sleepless nights. When you can find it on the newsstand, "The Baffler," the magazine, is equally highly recommended.