Absurd Intellectual

Let’s say you’re not a very good capitalist consumer. Let’s say you didn’t score very well on the logo recognition test.

Perhaps you even hold that as a point of pride. Perhaps, you say, it is just that you “place all such capitalist icons into their proper perspective (i.e. into the banal, derivative, generic, and irrelevant categories).”

That’s excellent. As a person who was just the right age to have Naomi Klein’s No Logo make a gigantic impression on me,* I am completely sympathetic.

That’s why I think you might be interested in this (ahem) product:

It’s the brainchild of one Jeffrey Crouse, and with about a month to go, he only needs about $1,100 in donations to get it up and running.

Do I love it? Yes. Do I think it’s perfect? No.

I would prefer to be able to download it as a filter, say, for Final Cut or iMovie or something. I think his idea of an uploadable server is interesting and cool, but far too single-point-of-failure for me.

Still, I keep thinking about a trip that Amy and I took to Cuba a couple of years ago, when we were surrounded by LITERAL PROPAGANDA everywhere we turned, and all we could think of was what a nice relief it was to not have our brains assaulted by advertising at every juncture. Now that’s a vacation.

(via BoingBoing)

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* One of the worst side-effects of 9/11, in my opinion, was the way it completely derailed all the wonderful youth protest movements that were just getting started.