My History with Propaganda

My favorite form of art is propaganda.  To many people who know me, it may seem like a contradiction.  How could someone who values truth so highly also have an interest in propaganda?  Calling it an interest is not quite accurate.  I actually have a strong emotional response to propaganda.  Depending on the imagery I experience emotions ranging from anger to joy.

My earliest curiosity in propaganda was sparked by a street artist named Shepard Fairey that started a street art movement called Obey Giant.  If you haven’t seen this sticker or poster plastered up somewhere, you haven’t been paying attention to your surroundings.

I saw was this poster and wondered what it meant.  At the time the Internet was limited to AOL and Prodigy so I didn’t have the information sources that I have today.  I happened into a strange bookstore in San Diego county called Ducky Waddles.  I noticed that they had posters with Andre the Giant’s face all over the place.  They also had a book that talked about Fairey’s purpose for the Obey Giant street campaign.  As far as I remember it was to evoke a curious response and have people question their surroundings and the advertisements they are subjected to.  I flipped through the book and found other pieces that Fairey had done, such as this one:

I found these pieces powerful and the idea behind them powerful.  One simple image was able to evoke so much curiosity and excitement in me.  I started to learn more about propaganda and its use throughout political history.  If you doubt how powerful this imagery can be, just do a Google search on North Korean Propaganda and see how full of emotion each piece is.

I started to notice more street art around me.  Around this time I was also becoming interested in philosophy.  I was slowly drifting towards atheism and moral relativism.  A Christian friend of mine, who was also a philosophy major, pointed out some pro-Christian street art that was around.  One piece in particular gave me the chills:

It also angered me to see this.  It was a reference to the most hotly debated topic in the religious versus secular realm: abortion.  I was angry mainly because the message was so trite for a topic that was so complex.  But I also realized what an emotional impact that this trite message could have on people.  How it could shut down thought so quickly and shut down debate.  I played around with the idea a bit and produced my first anti-propaganda piece.

I thought it was amusing, but didn’t ever feel like I made the impact I wanted to with it.  It didn’t really evoke the same deep emotions and certainly didn’t spark much curiosity.

I would travel up to Santa Barbara during my college years to go to parties.  While walking off a hangover one day I came across this painted on a sidewalk:

I was starting to get into Objectivism at the time and again felt angry and personally insulted by this piece of propaganda.  I countered it with my own:

This piece had emotional impact.  When I posted it on my blog, I received floods of hate comments.  I also was shocked later to see it on a bumper sticker, and then another, and then somebodies avatar, and then another.  It spread virally to some degree.  I still see it to this day pop up around the web and on peoples cars.  Unfortunately it is mainly being  used now by conservatives.  But that’s what I get for not fully understanding Socialism and Capitalism.  That’s the danger of spreading an idea.  If you don’t fully understand it, it will be used to further evil agendas.  Part of me is proud that I created an emotionally impactful piece of propaganda but I also worry about any consequences it may have in the future.

I tried to counter my own mistake with yet another piece fairly recently:

Better.  But, still not sure about its future impact.  Time will tell.

The propagandization of my own image is something I derive more joy than any other form of propaganda.  I’ve used it as an expression of one part of my personality or another.  The first part of my personality that emerged in the form of propaganda was one that I named MAF.  This was an acronym for Mini American Flags, which was a blog I used to have.  I used it to express my ideas in an over-the-top, humorous sort of way.   Here was the most prominent image that I used of myself:

MAF is the part of me that desires attention and has strong opinions on every topic.  He’s sort of Lewis Black sort of character that I use to express my frustrations about the world in a funny way.  I think this part of my personality bloomed because I was sick of being propagandized by my parents and my culture.  It was my first rebellion against the norm.

During this time I posted the following to try to evoke emotions in others.

I had a lot of fun with these images and spent hours on them.  They did evoke response, especially the Bush ones.  It’s what I wanted from my world.  Feedback and response.  Both things I finally had the freedom to control in my own life rather than be subjected to at the hands of my family and teachers.

I had a lull after that, sometimes producing a piece just for my own entertainment.

Neither really inspired anything in me, but were fun to play around with.

Last night I had insomnia pretty bad.  For some reason I picked up my mouse again and produced the following.

I’m not really sure where this came from, but I was proud with the result and others enjoyed it as well.  It’s another self-portrait.  Possibly another awaking of part of my personality.  I hope so, because whenever a new part emerges I spill out onto this world with so much creative passion.  Hope to post more soon.

Let me know what you think about propaganda and the emotions it evokes in you.  Is it an art form that you appreciate?  Hate?  Can it be used for good?  I’d like to think so.  The medium is the message.

*AFTERTHOUGHT*  Shepard Fairey went onto produce one of the most infamous pieces of propaganda of our time.  I find that disturbing because he knew the power of propaganda and seemed to be against it.  And yet he will go down in history as helping Obama get into power.  Wow…