a spy in the house of hip – cluster mag

a spy in the house of hip – cluster mag

November 21, 2012, 8:58 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cayce pollard, cluster magazine, coolhunting, cultural imperialism, william gibson

For Cluster Magazine’s recent «Branding» issue: cultural imperialism, becoming a William Gibson character, the dubious politics of being a cultural informant, ethnomarketing in the uae, coolhunting in the age of the internet. Also, anxiety—A Spy in the House of Hip 

Included in the brief for my own possible assignment was a directive that the respondents be—and I quote directly—“open to American brands and brand America, ie, not anti-America.” I wondered whether this was a standard brief point, or an assumption specific to the Middle East; whether it was a crypto-assertion of soft power, intimated in blue denim, rivets, and a zipper. Whether this was what cultural imperialism had become in this age of light-speed transnational exchange.

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