Culture Jamming - The Bubble Project

In my research on culture jamming, an example that stood out to me was the Bubble Project by Ji Lee. Lee, an artist and art director, printed out 20,000 stickers shaped like comic book speech bubbles and plastered them all over advertisements in downtown New York City . By doing so, he intended for people to write their own messages inside the bubbles, effectively “hijacking” the ads. From Lee’s perspective, an advertisement “doesn’t ask for our opinion. It doesn’t engage us in an exchange. It only screams at us—whether we like it or not” (Aiga.org). So why not allow people scream back, anonymously? Well, get this, scream they did! Where once were heavily processed and corporate marketing messages now stood a wide array of open forums, a way for people to express their thoughts and have a dialogue with the world around them. Or, in some cases, to be satirical and hilarious. The IBM ad with a stern man holding a laptop now saying “I use it for downloading porn!” comes to mind…

I think the Bubble Project resonates with me because, unlike some other forms of culture jamming, it allows anyone to participate. While people like the Yes Men can work anonymously and get their ideas out there, it’s entirely performed by a small group of people. Yes, the Bubble Project can be traced directly to one person, but Ji Lee simply printed the stickers. He himself didn’t write the messages. That was up to the general populous, the great mass who have their own individual opinions and things they want to say but feel they can’t. When it comes to a blank speech bubble, however, their inhibitions disappear. They can express themselves completely anonymously without fear of retribution, while at the same time spinning a completely manufactured message to their own whims. It’s completely viral and sneaky and that’s what I like about it!

Luckily, the project is still going on to this day. The Bubble Project homepage (http://thebubbleproject.com) allows anyone to print off the speech bubble sticker template, submit photos of their own ad-hijacking, and even has a section called “Online Bubbles” where one can anonymously add a caption to an existing internet image. There’s really no reason not to participate!