I recently was looking at “The Big Ideas 2005” issue of Adbusters Magazine. I was quite intrigued by several of the ads, especially ones involving the environment and the media’s exploitation of women. One ad a reader found on the cover of People Magazine and she/he explained their disgust with the way a little girl was portrayed as needing makeup to appear attractive.

In looking up Adbusters up on Google, I encountered a website where a reader was angry and claiming that Teresa Heinz-Kerry was funding Adbusters. It turned out that this wasn’t exactly the case. Another reader clarified that Adbusters is a non-profit organization. They have a donations section on their website, but this does not mean that Heinz-Kerry “supports Communism and Socialism.” http://www.etalkinghead.com/archives/defending-teresa-heinz-kerry-2004-04-27.html

I think it’s interesting how people get angry and don’t have a basis for their anger. Or, it seems more logical that there’s little reason to be angry if an individual doesn’t research their information first. Aside from trivial qualms about misinformed bloggers/journalists who refuse to get their facts right, I’m actually quite intrigued by this Adbusters magazine. Even its website catches my attention because many of the ideas reflect hypocrisies that I’ve been questioning quite often in my daily thoughts.

About a month ago I took an online Politics Test that I found to be quite interesting because it “supposedly” asks an individual about their political and moral beliefs and comes out with several different charts and allows you to see what particular people in real life and characters from movies, etc., fit into these four particular areas as well. This is the test if anyone’s interested in taking it. I find it helpful because it helps narrow down your beliefs instead of directly saying their completely liberal or completely conservative:

The reason I thought this quiz important to the subject of Adbusters is because the according to the website defending Teresa Heinz Kerry the site is communist/socialist. The results of this test that I took said I was socialist. They even give this picture of famous individuals and show where they lie on the chart and where you like in comparison to them.

In reading about Adbusters I became quite drawn in by their sometimes humorous and often blatantly truthful and heart-hitting advertisements (though often these are spoofs on real ones, their power is still emphatic) that make you realize just how horrible the state of many real advertisements is affecting our world today. Society just seems so screwed up. It can make a person sick to their stomach. On Adbusters’ online site their mission statement definitely struck me, especially being concerned about the state of media as I am.

“We are a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age. Our aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century.

To this end, Adbusters Media Foundation publishes Adbusters magazine, operates this website and offers its creative services through PowerShift, our advocacy advertising agency.
Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Adbusters is a not-for-profit, reader-supported, 120,000-circulation magazine concerned about the erosion of our physical and cultural environments by commercial forces. Our work has been embraced by organizations like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, has been featured in hundreds of alternative and mainstream newspapers, magazines, and television and radio shows around the world.

While two-thirds of Adbusters' readers reside in the United States, the magazine has subscribers in 60 other countries, with one of the most diverse readerships of any publication. Our readers are professors and students; activists and politicians; environmentalists and media professionals; corporate watch dogs and industry insiders; kids who love our slick ad parodies and parents who worry about their children logging too many hours a day in the electronic environment.” (avail. Adbusters.org)

Adbusters is supported by its readers, by donations, etc. I think it’s supported because of just how many ideas it portrays, how it expresses truth and hypocrisy through mimicking and spoofing the ads that we take for granted everyday. Adbusters is teaching us of how to reeducate our supposedly already educated self. I think we’re learning everyday. We’re always learning and I don’t think we’ll ever stop.

One thing that really caught my attention was a statement at the bottom of their “About Us” page:

“Ultimately, though, Adbusters is an ecological magazine, dedicated to examining the relationship between human beings and their physical and mental environment. We want a world in which the economy and ecology resonate in balance. We try to coax people from spectator to participant in this quest. We want folks to get mad about corporate disinformation, injustices in the global economy, and any industry that pollutes our physical or mental commons.” (avail. Adbusters.org)

I have to say finally that after everything, I’m starting to really get angry. I really want this world to change and I think magazines like Adbusters and Bitch Magazine and many of the others questioning the morality/politics of our world are going to help make a difference, but it won’t happen if we aren’t interested. I’ll tell you for sure now though. I’m interested. I’m ready to learn all I can.

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