Commerce Jamming

Ever since Jesus tangled with the moneychangers in the temple there's been a sense that the marketplace is a legitimate target for abuse, ridicule and subversion.

I talk about the various crooked schemes that are a shopping mall of their own in my Scams & Frauds page, but here I want to mention a few of the not-for-profit hacks.

The BLO at work
One-upping Jesus was the hack of a more recent Jewish troublemaker, Abbie Hoffman, who used the greed of Wall Street against itself -- showering dollar bills onto the trading-room floor and watching the brokers claw through each other to get at the cash.

You know those things that come in the mail disguised as checks made out to you that turn out to be just advertisements? A fellow named Patrick Combs took one down to the bank and deposited it -- it resembled a check so much (and may have met the legal requirements for a binding contract of legitimate debt) that the bank accepted it. $95,000 later, someone figured out that something was fishy, but by that time, Combs had gotten a cashier's check written out and placed in a safe deposit box! Go to his web page to get the details of his adventures.

For those of you in the parody market, there are a few web sites that display satirical commercials and cereal boxes and such. Also, Adbusters takes regular aim at the advertising world and the consumer ethic.

odd plants
Kudos to The Barbie Liberation Organization for switching the voice chips between Barbie and G.I. Joe dolls to strike a blow for nontraditional gender roles.

Cacophonists have infiltrated and mocked some of the most beloved idols of the consumer culture, for instance Chuck-E-Cheese and the Department Store Santa.

When a telemarketer calls, it's only humane to try to transmogrify the encounter into something just a little more fun. And, no billboard should escape being forced to uncover its ugliness or ours. Even government agencies are getting into the billboard parody act these days. Adbusters publishes an on-line guide to billboard modification called Adding the Blemish of Truth.

Things that aren't actually for sale, but have been promoted by pranksters nonetheless include Bunny Burgers, Microsoft's Windows for Macintosh, a 1-900 number for evesdropping on 911 emergency calls, such plants as Common Dickweed and Heinous Welsh Squash, cyber dildos and Jenny McCarthy's urine.

A particularly wicked hack was Luther Blissett's parody of the archetype of poisonous product tampering -- instead of putting rat poison in children's candy, he bought packages of rat poison, replaced the poison with candy, sealed up the packages and put them back on the shelf.