Some former means of countercultural expression that have been identified by critics as recuperated (at least in part) are: punk music and fashion like mohawk hairdos, ripped jeans, and bondage accessories like dog collars; tattoos; street art and participatory art.
(You know, like Paul Ryan liking Rage Against the Machine.)
Because Capitalism is built to sell anything, even ideas.
Do you remember Reddit’s Random Acts of Pizza from around 2010-2012 or so?
It was a really sweet forum where people were buying hungry folks in need a pizza. Something simple and comforting for people struggling.
Within a year of a handful of news articles about the subreddit, and Mars Candy had copyrighted the phrase “Random Acts of Chocolate” and pushed an ad campaign about “buying an extra for a friend” as a “random act of chocolate.”
Part of how they recuperate things is through mechanisms like copyright and trademarks, these laws are built protect businesses but bind individuals. Random Acts of Pizza is just a subreddit but Random Acts of Chocolate is copyrighted, trademarked, and owned by Mars, Inc. Meaning in some ways I am barred from using the phrase “Random Acts of Chocolate” since they own it.
EDIT:
I almost forgot my favorite example: Naomi Klein’s book “This Changes Everything.” The thesis is that if we don’t dump capitalistic modes of production we’ll all fall to climate change. However, she still relied on traditional capitalist publishers to get her book published and sold. She didn’t put her money where her mouth was and release it online for free for everyone, to show she was willing to dump capitalism to spread her message, since it was that important. Nope, still gotta use capitalism to critique capitalism, I guess. She also will speak at your university for a cool $100k. I think she believes in her thesis less than she says she does.
Disco Elysium
Why is this the case? Why is it so readily able to subsume critique?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recuperation_(politics)
(You know, like Paul Ryan liking Rage Against the Machine.)
Because Capitalism is built to sell anything, even ideas.
Do you remember Reddit’s Random Acts of Pizza from around 2010-2012 or so?
https://abcnews.go.com/US/random-acts-pizza-donate/story?id=13950694 (This story is from June 2011)
It was a really sweet forum where people were buying hungry folks in need a pizza. Something simple and comforting for people struggling.
Within a year of a handful of news articles about the subreddit, and Mars Candy had copyrighted the phrase “Random Acts of Chocolate” and pushed an ad campaign about “buying an extra for a friend” as a “random act of chocolate.”
https://www.cspdailynews.com/snacks-candy/mars-distributing-random-acts-chocolate (This is from September 2011)
https://www.thismomneedswine.com/2011/03/free-chocolate-bar.html (A blog post from March 2011 about free coupons for chocolate)
Part of how they recuperate things is through mechanisms like copyright and trademarks, these laws are built protect businesses but bind individuals. Random Acts of Pizza is just a subreddit but Random Acts of Chocolate is copyrighted, trademarked, and owned by Mars, Inc. Meaning in some ways I am barred from using the phrase “Random Acts of Chocolate” since they own it.
EDIT:
I almost forgot my favorite example: Naomi Klein’s book “This Changes Everything.” The thesis is that if we don’t dump capitalistic modes of production we’ll all fall to climate change. However, she still relied on traditional capitalist publishers to get her book published and sold. She didn’t put her money where her mouth was and release it online for free for everyone, to show she was willing to dump capitalism to spread her message, since it was that important. Nope, still gotta use capitalism to critique capitalism, I guess. She also will speak at your university for a cool $100k. I think she believes in her thesis less than she says she does.