Why Johnny Can't Dissent

Why Johnny Can't Dissent

Thomas Frank focused on the idea of brands using rebellion as their advertising tactic. In “Why Johnny Can't Dissent", Frank compiled a list of ad slogans from major commercial brands: "Sometimes You Gotta Break the Rules”--Burger King, "If You Don't Like The Rules, Change Them”--WXRT-FM, "The Art of Changing”--Swatch, “This is different. Different is good”--Arby's, and "It separates you from the crowd”--Vision Cologne. Frank also said that “Consumerism is no longer about ‘conformity’ but about ‘difference’”. Corporate industry is adopting the ideologies of the anti-conformity movement to attract its members and establish a new standard of consumerism based on the notion that it can provide the individuality that a consumer wants, while on a grand scale, the industry is really giving out this individuality to many.

Frank then quotes Leslie Savan. "The problem comes," she writes, "in how easily any idea, deed, or image can become part of the sponsored world." Companies aren’t forcing us to want their products but are rather changing their products to fit our needs. They are promoting resistance and not trying to make the general public conform. By promoting rebelling, products seem more appealing.

I think that we, as individuals, cannot break free of the conformity that binds us in our society. We want to identify with the “new”, we seek to be rebels, different, and unique. We are attracted to buy what will associate us with “counterculture,” to possess that rebel appeal. As the decades have passed to now, there are new ways we seek to rebel and dream of an ideal culture, but we are lured back to conform to the new styles, new technology and new idea.