Adbusters Archive

The (almost) complete archive of all the stuff that Adbusters has ever made - Articles! Podcasts! Spoof ads! - in one convenient place for your viewing pleasure.

Articles

Usually exclusive to our physical magazine, we’ve treated non-subscribers to a selection of some of our best print pieces.

Looking Back in Anger

In matters of life and fate, timing is everything. Culturally, socially, materially, the setting of your upbringing, specific to time and place, cannot but impress itself on you. And the parts of your upbringing that are not unique to you, but which are shared by all your coevals, likewise inform their sensibilities, bringing about a cohort of young people with similar experiences, common attitudes, kindred beliefs — in other words, a new generation. At least, that is the first assumption of the theory of generations. Generations, the theory holds, are defined by the events that their constituents witness together; by the culture that shapes them and which in turn they shape. Some generations are noted for the upheavals they lived through, others for those they precipitated.

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Sarah Lucas' Boner

Is Sarah Lucas the indispensable artist of the #MeToo Movement? Is her work even more important in this epic feminist uprising? Are we projecting our feelings onto her art? It really doesn’t matter.

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Searching Hearts

It happened sometime around 2010: A singular moment in human history . . . it was the moment we stopped getting angry at people gaping at their devices, bumping into us on the sidewalk . . . the moment when, with a sigh, your professor finally gave up on that student who, to be fair, was, like, always checking her phone . . .

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Deep Dives

Dive deep into long form features on everything from smartphone addiction to what a True-Cost global marketplace would mean for the economy.

Outfox the algorithms! One man’s attempt to live one day absolutely free

As a once-and-future free-range human, I’ve been thinking about how to shake off the commercial algorithms that have hacked into my life and are now driving it. The key, I’ve concluded, is novelty. Whether it’s true, as the ethobotanist and psychonaut Terence McKenna claimed, that the pursuit of novelty is “the only one way to live a truly progressive life,” it’s a mighty tempting strategy to air out. “From a species perspective, the job of each individual is to be unlike anyone who’s living or who ever lived,” McKenna wrote. “To do things, and react to things, in a way no one has quite done before.” This is of course pretty much an act of cultural treason. There’s a reason Atomic Habits was a #1 world bestseller and nobody has written Atomic Novelty. Habits are safe. Flout them and people in charge start furrowing their brows, because now you’re likely to start breaking rules, too. Even

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Rewiring Society for Survival

Inventing a new way to live, one that will allow us, as a species, to go on living, is what economists call a "wild problem." It will take a mighty imaginative leap, really a heave of consciousness. But we can do it. We have to.It's easier to imagine the end of the worldthan the end of capitalism.— Frederic JamesonI. The TaskThe time for tiny tweaks to the status quo is over. We've run out of time for that. The only thing that will save us is massive buy-in to a major paradigm shift, a different way of living and loving on planet Earth. A lighter, looser, sparer one. More, because less.Here's how people typically change their minds. They do it the way a climber scales a rock face, inching out beyond the last point of protection — so that if they fall, they fall only as far as what they last believed.Our rethinks are not big stretches, in other words. Just variations on what we think righ

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Defying the Straight Line

He couldn't stand straight lines and right angles, which aren't much found in nature. Things not made by us mostly curve. Nothing worthwhile is plum, level or square.So observed Gaetano Pesce, the great Italian designer, who died at age 84.From this man's brow burst organic, protoplasmic designs for things like bookcases and sofas, blazing with intense, saturated color.

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Spoof Ads

Our fingers are on the global pulse, counting beats as we stutter towards the throes of death. If you want to know what Adbusters thinks about the news, this is where you find it.

KalleCasts

We're in the middle of a guerrilla marketing war for the future of the planet. Conventional weapons are useless — all we have are ideas. These are the best of our culture jams.

Hummingbird

Media

Listen to the voice of Adbusters proffering sweet ASMR vibes about the end of capitalism and where Occupy Wall Street went wrong.

Adbusters 161: Hope/Nope

The Pulse

Memes can be cinematic too. Turn up the volume and watch the chaos of the world unfold and disintegrate before your very eyes.

History's Largest Protest Just Happened . . . and Farmers Led the Charge

November 25th marked the largest protest in human history — over ten times the size of demonstrations that erupted in the wake of George Floyd's murder at the hands of police.

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Pandemic or Not, Capitalism Marches Onwards toward Techno-barbarism

As Western Nations continue to grapple with the pandemic, it is apparent that Covid-19 has landed the death blow to the Neoliberal Capitalism that has dominated the global political and economic landscape of the last few decades.

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Subversive Smiley Cracks Singapore’s Ridiculous Facade

Think of a symbol of resistance. What comes to mind? A Guy Fawkes mask, a raised fist, an anarchist circle-A? How about a smiley face?

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