I see this magazine on the shelves all the time, and the covers look very interesting.
What’s the content like? Who is the target audience?
MtM
Their main theme is anti-consumerism. They have some good content, but their tone can be a little preachy and self-righteous at times.
If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t like logos on your clothing, you might find it interesting. If you absolutely HATE logos on clothing, you’ll probably love Adbusters.
It delivers its anti-consumerism ideas with art, not articles. So it is good for a brain-break in between Noam Chomsky books. They are like $7 but they don’t have any ads, so it is reasonable. Anyway, it is good stuff to leave lying around so your guests have something to look at if you get a phone call or Whateva.
I love Adbusters. The articles are interesting (in a liberal anti-consummerism way), plus they make for great Angry Collages.
Just think of it as the other side of the media coin.
I always give Adbusters a thumb-through, but I always pass it up for magazines with a more traditional style of article.
The March issue of Adbusters composed a list of 50 neo-conservatives and then tagged the Jews among them, questioning how their Jewishisness and support for Israel influences American foreign policy. Then they ran a story with the title: Why won’t anyone say they are Jewish?
Wow, this is sick stuff. Classic Jew-baiting right out of Dreyfuss France and other European nations. It is kind of sad to see the left descend to hatred.
I used to like Adbusters. Now I see that they are evil. And stupid.
I first picked it up in about 1997(I think?). At the time it seemed to be anti-cosumerist and pro-environmentalist, but it seems to have become more extreme in recent years. I was reading them regularly, but since the tone had changed to a more bleak outlook I stopped picking them up. They were always encouraging people to speak up against the corporatations and taking action in their own locale, but they started ‘glamourizing’ the protests at the G7 summits and whatnot and the militantism that they were advocating was what ‘put me off’ them. They also became more political (which I don’t have much interest in).
I agree with some of the concepts that they advocate, but would prefer to see them encouraging education instead of militantism. I hadn’t seen the article that
Geoduck is speaking of, but it sounds unnecessary.
Here they are…I still think the magazine is worth a look now and again…
I read Adbusters often, though I’ve found that the magazine isn’t always the best when it comes to portraying anti-corporate sentement. I’d recommend reading Lasn’s (the creator of Adbusters) book, “Culture Jam”.