Things that The System creates are still foci of hip alienation.

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The flip side of a renewed appreciation of crafts, both in the 60s counterculture and the in the contemporary underground culture of the Pacific Northwest, is a delight in making fun of mainstream culture and its artifacts, particularly in the realm of marketing and advertising.    Here is a description in Samuels’ article of undergrounders looking at locally produced videos featuring material intercut from commercial TV:

“Wow, my teeth feel really clean!” explains a chirpy blonde in a toothpaste ad.  Everyone in the room laughs.

This scene and audience reaction could have been spliced in intact from film of kids in the late sixties, when we mocked the cultural artifacts of The Establishment for the same kind of silly superficiality as being “plastic.” 

 

(c) COPYRIGHT 2000 ROBERT WINTER.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.