The idea of taking something meaningful and turning it into something profitable has existed for a long time. Cooperation’s due this so that they can turn something popular at the time into something that can be sold by them to the people for a profit. An example of this is the 1950 and 1960s which saw the creation of styles that rebelled against consumerism at that time. It also saw the creation of styles that embraced the idea of the period they were in. This led to these styles becoming  very district in how they looked such as the Psychedelic art style. These styles were then taken by mass media cooperation and turned into something that could be sold to the public whether it was through bands or clothing. They used the styles and turned it into something that was no longer district. This can be seen even today something unique can come around but soon it becomes the norm and loses the voice it once had.
The creation of mainstream advertisement is one of the reasons the idea of culture jamming was created. Culture jamming is a form of protest that was used to rebel against the status quo or the mainstream culture. Examples of culture jamming can be found in many places throughout history. One example depicts a McDonald’s ad that exposes the idea of McDonald’s using growth hormones on cows. This is an example because the ad uses; McDonald’s brand and color to expose them to animal cruelty. It also uses the image of a humanoid female cow to represent the growth hormones. It also has a distorted version of Mc Donald’s in the background to show its corruption. Another example is an ad for Absolut Vodka which mocks the brand’s use of the Shakespearean writing on the bottle. They do this by having the vodka bottle be crusted and having a quote from Shakespeare that states that their action is ruining the point of Shakespeare’s work. It also mocks the ad’s idea of vodka being perfect by calling it impotent or useless. It also pushes further on this idea by having the bottle look like an impotent penis.
Mainstream at times seems like has one goal to sell anything to people no matter what it is. This can at times make it very hard for a unique voice or work of art to get out because it could wind up being used simply to sell to people and not for its original purpose. But hopefully, this does not stop people from getting their voices out there and trying something new.
Anninotion Lin
I agree, mainstream culture does seem to take over. You are showing great examples, do you think that they make a difference. How can a designer make his voice heard above the noise?