Banksy on advertising:
People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.
You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.
Love, love, love that Banksy quote. Makes me go YEAH!
Brilliant.
Advertising – the money making machinery that preys on people’s insecurities and aspirations.
This crystallised everything I have been thinking about this weekend – not least because I just finished reading ‘The Year of the Flood’ by Margaret Atwood which presents a daunting vision of a future in which ‘The Corporations’ run the show. And then an article in today’s paper about the fact that not even a corporation with the might of Coca-cola Amatil has the power to take on the supermarket duopoly in this country, so what chance the rest of us?
I love it when people bring together notions that you’ve had swilling around your head in some vague form but haven’t needed or been able to articulate. That is a cracker, and is now part of my quote collection – thanks!
Thanks for posting this. Really inspiring quote. Makes me want to go give all the people who have ever modified a billboard high fives.
[...] Making your girlfriend feel inadequate [...]
I like this Banksy quote although the ‘making your girlfriend feel inadequate’ part of it suggests he’s only talking to men/views men as his primary audience which is annoying.