Culture Jamming – “Dumb Starbucks”

In an episode of “Nathan for You”, a comedy show hosted by Nathan Fielder, Nathan helped rebrand a struggling coffee shop as “Dumb Starbucks” to increase sales. Nathan notes that parody, “allows you to use trademarks and copyrighted material as long as you’re making fun of them.” Therefore, all Nathan had to do was claim that he is a parody artist, and that the name “Dumb Starbucks” was a parody of Starbucks.

It ended up working, and the “Dumb Starbucks” gained mass media publicity and a ton of customers. It sold similar drinks to Starbucks, but at cheaper prices. And since it is parody, they are allowed to use Starbuck’s name. The “Dumb Starbucks” coffee shop copied their logo, interior design, color schemes, employee uniforms, and menu all after Starbucks.

Fielder also performs other small acts of parody to build up his character as a parody artist, so that he can prove that what he is doing with the Starbucks name is a parody if the authorities got involved. This example´s purpose is to be funny, popularize Nathan Fielder´s T.V. show, and bend the rules of what is copyright and what is ¨parody.¨ This is a question that is hard to answer. Users of parody often mock large, capitalistic monopolies or businesses that can stand to get parodied by citizens of its country (such as Starbucks, Burger King, and McDonalds.) Nathan imitates Starbucks from its logo to its actual name.

This is where parody can be dangerous, yet it can also facilitate the common good of the people. Wherein Nathan mocks Starbucks, the main goal is to stretch the line between parody and abusing copyrights, and Nathan does this successfully and with a lot of attention from the press and media as well. This brought up legal issues, and Starbucks ended up not being able to sue, or not suing.

In summary, Nathan´s purpose was to be comedic and gain popularity for his show. However, the stunt itself gained media coverage before the episode ever aired. The media coverage was a result of crowds of people getting coffee at a place called ¨Dumb Starbucks.¨ Therefore, Nathan exhibits culture jamming through this stunt. It also opens the door for other platforms to get attention with their own forms of rhetorical parody, which can be seen in the picture with ¨Dumb Plastic.¨

Harold describes culture jamming as when one ¨disrupts existing transmissions. It usually implies an interruption, a sabotage, hoax,prank, banditry, or blockage of what are seen as the monolithic power structures governing cultural life¨ in her article ´Pranking Rhetoric “Culture Jamming” as Media Activism.´

Harold talks about parody and pranksters. The difference between these terms is significant to Harold. She believes that parody can only do so much, and has limitations, so to say. Harold writes, ¨whereas the culture jammer as saboteur opposes commercialism through revelatory rhetoric such as parody, pranksters can be seen as comedians.¨ Is Nathan´s prank a parody or prank? I believe Nathan is intersecting the boundaries of what these words mean. This is because Nathan is using parody throughout the stunt, but the purpose of Nathan is comedy, and it is a prank. It may not be the most insightful prank or important one, but it does open the door for pranksters and mocks one of the largest corporations of America.

For my mini-blog post, I decided to take a picture of a lounge room on the ground floor of Beeson Hall. I find this space unique and interesting because of its orientation, its location, but also because of its relation to the college body.

First, the location of this lounge area is on the ground floor of Beeson Hall, which is a hall containing Professors’ offices for Mass Comm, Spanish, and Physics (I think). It is a newer building that has recently been getting redesigned. The building does not experience a high traffic of students. This is because students usually only come here if they are going to see a professor. The lounge room is aligned in the dead center of the buiding, with halls, lined with offices, going out of both sides of the room. The front door to this building is located in this space, so students that do come into this building will usually do so through this door. Therefore, it is not the quietest or most ideal study space because it is an open room and the tables are more relaxing than ideal for setting up a laptop and studying.

There is also a nice chess set that I have never seen being used. There are two giant flat-screen T.V.’s set up on both sides of the room, but nothing of importance is every displayed on these T.V.’s. Usually the monitors are just black. It is interesting that this space is located so close to the center of campus, has such nice necessities, but nobody ever seems to make good use of this room. It almost seems unpractical in design.

The spatial orientation of this room is set up for students to be able to walk in through the front door and go through the center of the lounge area, then they will be able to go left or right down a hall. Therefore, there is a walkway for students and on both sides of this walkway are chairs and couches set up around small tables. There is a lot of room between the chairs and tables. It seems like nobody will be able to actually set something on the table because it is so spacious in this room. The television sets are not displayed in this image, but they seem oddly large and out of place for this room.

Barbatsis’ narrative theory looks into the way people communicate. Barbatsis believes this is through stories. This is how information is told and passed down. Therefore, the narrative becomes an important aspect of not just rhetoric, but visual rhetoric. Barbatsis overviews the basics of narratives and storytelling. This includes characters, plot, actions, etc… that can be picked up on.

Then, Barbatsis, breaks his narrative theory down into two parts- the descriptive structure of an image and the literal structure of an image. Barbatsis explains the descriptive structure of an image as outward-looking (to go outside the reading, from individual words to meaning). The literal structure is more inward-looking. This is looking at the words, the captions, etc… If there are no words then the literal meaning can mean the angle, lighting, closeness, or other similar aspects of an images literal sense.

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These images, derived from different times and locations, tell a story. The images depict fans of the Grateful Dead. These fans, known as Deadheads, created a counterculture based around peace and the coming together of the community. These people are known for their odd, counter-cultural looks, haircuts, and clothing. Deadheads are known for their use and acceptance of vibrant, psychedelic colors, especially for clothing. It is easy to spot or identify fans of the Grateful Dead, especially if you are in the USA. This is because Deadheads are understood and embedded into our cultural understandings.

Based on Barbatsis’ theory, these images tell a story. This story can be depicted through descriptive structural analysis or the literal structure. The narration we get from the images is one with people, a location, signs, words, images, colors, cultures, and life. There are also ideas, values, and beliefs that can be drawn from the images, especially if the viewer has a cultural understanding of this group of people.

Looking directly at the literal structure of the images, we have to look inward, to the text or ideas that the image tells us directly. The literal structure of these images show clothing with many colors, or tie-dye. The people’s clothes are worn-in and raggedy. The people are sometimes shirtless. The men photographed in these images all had long grown-out hair, or grown-out beards. Their faces are easy-going and seem care-free. There are symbols present in the images. These include a symbol for peace and the symbol for the Grateful Dead band. We see a man with a child. The child is on top of the hood of the car relaxing with the man (probably her father). So, there are not only men pictured. There is a picture with two men who have turned their car into a tent to live and cook in. In the last image, there is a man holding a sign which asks for concert tickets. By the people’s faces, you can tell that they are content or happy. They seem merry-go-lucky.

The descriptive structure of the narrative told by these images looks beyond the text or the image itself. The clothing choices and colors in coordination with their hair length and beard length give us some insight about the counter-cultural ideals that these people may have. With the proper cultural understandings we know what tie-dye meant during the 1960s and 70s. We also know about the hippie movement, and this is probably why most of the people pictured have longer hair.

In the last image, the sign that asks for tickets, with a Grateful Dead symbol, tells the viewer what band they want to see and what time period this could possibly be if there is a cultural understanding of the symbols present.

There are many ways of understanding the images and the narrative by looking beyond the image itself. By the way the people have their cars and tents set up, you can suggest that these people are doing more than just going to the shows. They are living a lifestyle that involves dropping the dominant ideologies of what is important in life. You can infer that these people are living in congruity to the symbols of peace, by the symbol of peace being displayed in the images. The men have long hair, which is a symbol of counter-cultural beliefs at the time. You get the picture that these people are living alongside the “hippie” movement of the 60s and 70s because they operate and display themselves in very similar manners.

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The collection of images above encapsulates the basis of my room. The panel of snapshots provided detail what my room looks like when it is at its peak of messiness. It resulted in what I would call “I Spy” worthy pictures. At its fundamentals, my room is a miscellany of stuff. It is scatterbrained. It lacks organization, precepts, and axioms. It does have wear and tear. The photographs bring immediacy, show spontaneousness, and are grounded to reality. Yes I have a bed frame but I am too lazy to set it up because I am moving out soon and don’t sleep there anyways. My room lacks shelving, compartments, and furnishment. This results in a lot of disorder and cluttering of things. One of the tacks on my poster fell off so now it is partly hanging off the wall. However, this cut of images gives a sense of what a college student’s room can look like at its worst.

According to Edwards and Winkler, an ideograph is a picture that evokes some sort of ideology or general concept of a type of ideology. The most common example is that of the flag raising of Iwo Jima. That iconic photograph is a representation of the ideologies of the United States. This is due to the context, the U.S. soldiers, and the American flag in the picture. The ideology that the viewer may feel is that of independence, freedom, and democracy. When looking at an ideograph, the ideology should come to you naturally.

In this visual representation of Jesus, which is one of many similar portraits, the true character of Jesus is not known. This is a picture that was made to represent what Jesus would look like. There is no proof in the pudding that Jesus looked like this, yet we mutually agree that this is a viable representation of Jesus. The ideology that this, or any image of Jesus evokes is one of Christian value. If this picture of Jesus is to be an ideograph, then there is cultural knowledge and context that must be understood. Given any circumstance, an image that pulls from man’s mutually agreed upon representation of Jesus brings with it the morals and ideologies that Christians and the bible itself carry with them. These ideologies make up Christianity, but there are multiple ideologies that this picture evokes. One broad ideology is love, and to love your neighbors.

I chose to evaluate an image based on Foss’ schema. Foss includes three steps in this schema.

The first step is to evaluate an image by its function. What function does the image serve to convey? For this image, the function is to portray the Jewish community, mostly within Germany, as plotters and conspirators. The function is made obvious through the anchorage with the text. The Jewish man, hidden behind the flags of the Allie nations, is characterized as being malevolent. The image’s goal is to delineate a certain form of animosity towards the Jewish community.

The next step in Foss’ schema is to analyze how well that function is communicated to the audience or viewer. This piece of Nazi propaganda has a distinct function, and it is one that is presented clearly to the viewer. The characterization of a Jewish man serves as a visual synecdoche for the Jewish community as a whole. The purpose of the image is to persuade the German people into believing a set of false stipulations about Jewish people as a whole (being that they are conspiring with Germany’s enemies).

The final step is to evaluate the legitimacy of the image. The legitimacy of this piece of visual rhetoric is small. The function is existent and communicated well. The legitimacy of the function being conveyed is a different story. The illegitimacy of the characterization of the Jewish community stands out strikingly. It is clearly incorrect inaccurate and wrong to pigeonhole an entire ethno-religious group as pernicious. The depiction of the Jew shrouded by Allie nation flags is not based on fact, but propaganda that aligns only with Nazi agenda. Therefore, the legitimacy of this image must be questioned.

Memes as examples of enthymematic reasoning:

Memes are a staple of today’s internet. “Meme” originally was a term coined by Richard Dawkins in his book “The Selfish Gene.”  Dawkins believed ideas, notions, and behaviors were influenced through evolutionary methods. Dawkins believed that if a shared behavior or notion was popular enough in a successful community, then it would show to have positive effects on gene survival. Dawkins claimed memes needed to be replicated and reproduced through populations. The internet “meme” has spearheaded the meaning of “meme.” Dawkins’ term for meme and the modern internet meme are not far off from each other.

A strong case could be made that religion is a meme embedded within our culture. Certain religious beliefs have positive effects on societies, which is why these rites have been successfully passed down for so many generations. If religion has survived this far, there is a biological and evolutionary reason for its constant existence.

Today’s definition of “meme” is a viral, easily-replicable, shared set of experiences that invoke laughter, emotion, or humor. Memes become viral and are predicated by a shared understanding of certain behaviors or cultural beliefs.

An enthymeme is a syllogism in which a premise is left out of the argument. It is important that the left out premise is understood by the audience. The shared understanding of this missing premise between the creator and viewer, and the shared understanding between the viewer and other viewers is critical for the popularity and viralness of the modern day “meme.”

The picture above can double as a meme and an enthymeme. Its meaning is dependent on the understanding of the unstated premise between both the audience and the author. This meme in particular is pretty self-telling. The information given is that this is from Indiana Jones. We get the picture of the golden artifact, which is labeled as “parent’s vodka”, the look of Jones’s pondering face, labeled as “me as a teenager”, and we see the “dummy” artifact labeled as well, with “water.” The meme depicted is pretty clear since it is labeled and put together very well, but it is still dependent on the viewer’s cultural understanding of the scene and of the captions.

One must know the circumstances of this scene from Indiana Jones, but one must also have a shared set of experiences with the creator of this meme. If you have not tried to replace your parents’ liquor with water in high school, then it may be hard to relate and process the meaning of this meme. If you have tried this tedious and dangerous stunt as a teenager, you will know that it is a very similar process to what Indiana Jones is doing above. Its humor is embedded in the cultural understanding of the meme.

Citations

Jordan, Mark. “What’s in a Meme?” Richard Dawkins Foundation, http://www.richarddawkins.net/2014/02/whats-in-a-meme/.

Chandler, Curry. “Memes, Enthymemes, and the Reproduction of Ideology.” Curry Chandler, 14 Sept. 2015, currychandler.com/cool-medium/2015/9/14/memes-enthymemes-and-the-reproduction-of-ideology.

Finnegan, Cara A. “The Naturalistic Enthymeme and Visual Argument: Photographic Representation in the ‘Skull Controversy.’” Argumentation and Advocacy, vol. 37, no. 3, 2001, pp. 133–149., doi:10.1080/00028533.2001.11951665.

Bodily self-stigmatization can take multiple forms. This can include tattoos, piercings, changes to body, self-harm, and more. Bodily self-stigmatization is the process of affecting your body as a result of a self-stigma that you have against yourself. This could be due to any kind of stigma that you or the people around you have. This stigma could be due to an illness, disease, mental health issue, etc… There are also social, mental, and physical stigmas.

The figure above contains a picture of a tattoo resembling a serotonin molecule. Serotonin is released during the process of self-harm and low levels of serotonin are linked with depression. Taylor E, the person in the picture says, “I got a serotonin molecule because it is released in the act of self-harm. I got this as a reminder that I don’t have to hurt myself to be happy. There has been a major lack of stability in my life growing up so I turned to some pretty unfortunate coping mechanisms, but I’m trying so hard to move forward and focus on being a victor, not a victim.”

For Taylor, having a permanent tattoo that has meaning to her and makes sense to those who may see it, may have made her struggle easier to overcome. This, along with many other similar types of tattoos that help people cope with personal struggle, often seems to be a successful way to overcome a stigma. This stigma could be held by that person or by others, and in tattooing the body, one is able to accept and overcome the self-stigmatization they may of have placed around themselves. In this instance, Taylor’s “self-stigma” against self-harm may have helped her overcome it. By accepting this stigma over an issue she used to battle with, she was able to more easily overcome this obstacle. In the example of self-harm, there are stigmas surrounding the practice for good and healthy reasons. Taylor’s ability to recognize the stigma against self-harm and accept it (internally and in the form of a tattoo) may be the reason she is better today.

Article: https://themighty.com/2018/09/childhood-trauma-tattoos/

The picture shown below is an advertisement by Schlitz beer, from the 1970s. A dominant and aberrant reading can be deciphered from this ad, but it is interesting how stereotypical this advertisement is. The women is pictured as the typical housewife who burned dinner, possibly not for the first time either. She is sad and has a handkerchief up to her cheek. She looks young and inexperienced as a wife. The man looks young too and he is wearing a suit. He has a smile on his face, has open arms, and seems to almost be happy that the wife burned dinner. The beer and the beer logo sit in the bottom-right corner of the picture right next to the man. The catchline, “Don’t worry darling, you didn’t burn the beer!” lays in the top-right in large print.

The dominant reading that was most intended by the advertiser is one that primarily targets young and inexperienced women. The message is simple. “There’s hope for any young bride who knows her man well enough to serve him Schlitz beer.” The man is stating, “Don’t worry darling, you didn’t burn the beer!” The advertisement targets young women who have been married and it portrays this idea that all a man needs from his woman is some Schlitz beer to be pleased. It doesn’t matter if you burn dinner, for example, because you got Schlitz for him.

The aberrant reading here may be the second target for this advertisement, the men. The aberrant reading could be one in which men are targeted and the message is something like “a man will be happy if he just has Schlitz for dinner.” The assumption could be drawn from a man’s perspective that Schlitz could actually make a sufficient dinner by itself. The man in the advertisement looks happy, while the women looks distressed.

Therefore, the dominant reading is one that targets young, newly-wed women to subsequently advertise that the simple way to make your husband happy is to get him Schlitz beer. The Aberrant reading is one that targets the men. It displays an idea that Schlitz beer is okay for dinner and that if you have this beer, you will be happy like the man in the advertisement. There is another reading that could overlook the stereotypical mode of this advertisement. Instead of seeing the women who failed to cook dinner and the man who does not care at all because she got him some Schlitz beer, someone could read this and think that maybe they do not carry that dinner was burned because they are both heavy drinkers, or that the man is simply an alcoholic.

15chungm, and By. “Kelly Chung.” Powered by The Learning Hub, blogs.yis.ac.jp/15chungm/2013/09/05/stereotypes-in-the-media-schlitz-dont-worry-darling-you-didnt-burn-the-beer/.