Tony Piro, at Calamaties of Nature, has a great cartoon exposing how commodified forms of rebellion can be quite expensive:
(I cut out the last panel so the cartoon would fit better, view the whole strip here.)
When tokens of resistance can be bought and sold, rebellion becomes something you purchase and perform. The irony is that this, as Piro points out, can actually connect you even deeper to the very structures you want to resist.
For more examples of commodified resistance, see our posts on the (not a real) razor necklace, H&M’s safety pin shirt, goth punk Barbie, “pre-stressed” guitars, and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
