The essence of childhood is innocence. The essence of youth is awareness.  The essence of adulthood is responsibility –Andy Crouch

Cultural Me

High culture, low culture, pop culture, ethnic culture, mass/social media dominated culture, political culture…we’re all part of culture in some way.  Today, we create more culture than ever in today’s crazy world of self publishing (blogs, micro blogs, facebook, youtube, etc.).  It is amazing to watch how the collective  consciousness of this world is being built at breakneck pace.

But some of us are better positioned than others to create and influence culture in a recognizable way.

Alex Bogusky

Alex Bogusky is a self described “culture jammer” and arguably one of the most influential creative directors of the decade (Burger King, Mini, etc.).  Adweek anointed Alex with Creative Director of the Decade honors in December.

Interestingly, Bogusky decided to step down from advertising while still in his prime.  The New York Times picked up on the departure of one of the best pop culture ad guys of the “noughties” pointing out that Bogusky wanted to shift gears and help build a different kind of culture:

“Mostly, what I want to do is participate in this cultural revolution that’s happening,” he (Bogusky) added, “happening mostly outside of advertising.”

Revolutionary You

I’m not sure what Alex Bogusky will be doing next, but it looks like he’ll be looking to support a couple of worthy causes.  In a recent blog post, Bogusky “calls out” advertising to children as a issue that needs to be dealt with urgently (especially in the age of childhood obesity).  He ends the post called The first Cannes Lion for not advertising at all passionately with a plea against excessive advertising to our young.  This was pretty thought provoking, so I thought I would post it below:

We all work to bring our personal values in line with our professional life and there are shades of grey to these decisions. But shades of grey don’t exist in our society’s decision to allow millions to be spent targeting an audience that is literally and physiologically incapable of protecting and defending themselves from a message probably doesn’t have their very best interest at heart…there are children and there are adults. And the duty of adults in society is to protect it’s children. And that is black and white.

If you get a chance read Bogusky’s The first Cannes Lion for not advertising at all post in its entirety , it will make you think about advertising’s affect on culture generally and kids specifically.

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