Breaking the Rules

"In television commercials, through which the new American businessman presents his visions and self-understanding to the public, perpetual revolution and the gospel of rule-breaking are the orthodoxy of the day. You only need to watch for a few minutes before you see one of these slogans and understand the grip of antinomianism over the corporate mind:

Sometimes You Gotta Break the Rules (Burger King)
The Rules Have Changed (Dodge)
This is different. Different is good. (Arby's)
The Line Has Been Crossed: The Revolutionary New Supra (Toyota)

...Rebellion makes no sense without repression; we must remain forever convinced of capitalim's fundamental hostility towards pleasure." -Thomas Frank "Why Johnny Can't Dissent"

When corporations say they are "breaking the rules" just to get consumers to view them as rebellious, it is almost a straight contradiction to our being rebellious. In fact, most consumers to be rebellious buy certain clothing, listen to certain kinds of music, drive certain cars of which all is targeted directly to that group of ppl so really they aren't being "rebellious" at all, they are giving in to exactly what they are fighting. The advertisers are so cunning in their approach that people don't even recognize that they are falling into the same traps as every one they are trying to differentiate themselves from. In fact, the only way I can think of to be truly different from the rest of the population is to just not buy anything, which really would be quite hard.