Rebel Yell

One of the funnier sidelines of the rush to market to GenX was advertisers' attempts to commoditize nonconformity. Their message, when you think about it, seems laughable: If you buy this product, you'll show how different you are ... just like everyone else who has bought this product.

Thomas Frank and his cultural criticism site The Baffler skewered this way of thinking repeatedly and effectively. One of Frank's best essays puncturing this illogical logic remains the classic Why Johnny Can't Dissent. "Corporate America," he wrote, "is no longer an oppressor but a sponsor of fun, provider of lifestyle accoutrements…" Rule-breaking and being different were the new value-added in Corporate America, but so many companies jumped on the bandwagon that the tactic proved hollow and unintentionally amusing.

Frank offers a withering compilation of the unimaginative slogans rolled out by corporations trying to commodify dissent in the 1990s. Both Young & Rubicon and Clash Clear Malt adopted the slogan "Resist the usual," Dodge told us "The rules have changed," Hugo Boss encouraged us to "Innovate not imitate," Special Import beer expressed itself as "Just different from the rest," and Burger King informed us that "Sometimes you gotta break the rules" while competitor Arby's observed "This is different. Different is good."

These ads were likely to offer their share of "screaming guitars, whirling cameras, and started old timers," who drove home the message that rebel consumers can show how different they are merely by purchasing this product. That the advertisers did not realize – or did not care – that Xers saw little differential value in buying something millions of other people had, or that so many advertising campaigns tried so hard to be different that they all looked the same, spoke volumes about the strange mania that seized marketers during the heyday of Generation X trendwatching.