Thomas' posterous

Contradiction 1: Ironic Distance Compressed.

Ironic distance has moved from a credible anticommercial cue to a cliche´d “adworld” convention in the space of less than a decade.

Contradiction 2: The Sponsored Society.

But market competition is driving an inflation in the quantity and aggressiveness of stealth attempts. [...] Increasingly, the brand agents who are sent into bars and clubs and schools to diffuse a brand virus will be unveiled and scorned with the same venom now devoted to telemarketers.

Contradiction 3: Authenticity Extinction.

Postmodern branding is now running a fine-toothed comb through the culture industry’s dusty closets and countercultural dead ends to mine the last vestiges of unsponsored expressive culture. Authenticity is becoming an endangered species.

Contradiction 4: Peeling Away the Brand Veneer.

Consumers have responded by increasingly attending to contradictions between the brand’s espoused ideals and the real world activities of the corporations who profit from them.

Contradiction 5: Sovereignty Inflation.

Collectively, postmodern branding floods social life with evangelical calls to pursue personal sovereignty through brands. To feel sovereign, postmodern consumers must adopt a never-ending project to create an individuated identity through consumption. This project requires absorbing an ever-expanding supply of fashions, cultural texts, tourist experiences, cuisines, mass cultural icons, and the like. As a result, we are in the midst of a widespread inflation in the symbolic work required to achieve what is perceived as real sovereignty.