My slogan

Today in class, I had everyone choose a sticker from Srini Kumar's Sticker Nation: The Big Book of Subversive Stickers Volume 1 and write about it (there is also a Volume 2 but I don't have it). It was a simple exercise, but I am very happy with the interesting writing that it generated. Also, people love stickers, and I am happy that everyone was so enthusiastic.

To be fair, I participated in the writing exercise as well. Everyone is posting their responses to their blogs, and so am I!

"YOU ARE NOT WHAT YOU OWN"

I have followed Unamerican.com for many years, through two (maybe 3? I can't remember when I first went to this site) presidential administrations and I have seen these slogans evolve.

This slogan has always stuck otu to me. I am a collector--and I tend to hoard things, even immaterial things like files on my computer or memories. When asked to do that 25 Things meme, a good number of the things I have thought were most interesting about myself were things that I own. I was embarrassed to realize that when i saw other people's lists that I had focused so much on my posessions. I try not to get too attached to material things but collections--comic books, toys--are sometimes easier to deal with than people. Oh, life.

This slogan is subversive because American (and global capitalist) culture values posessions as status symbols so much that ownign more stuff becomes people's motivation in life and defines them. This sticker challenges us to re-think our consumption and our drive to die with the most toys.