Anti-Branding in the American Society and Fiction

Abstract

Corporatization and branding of the world seem to be a relatively new phenomenon
for many people. However, they have been present for quite some time. The only
difference could be found in their immensity and manifestations during the modern
and postmodern times. Branding could take on a lot of different forms, like place
branding, identity branding, cultural branding, nation branding, and so on. Whatever
form it may assume, it has always tended to attain strongholds around us. Modern
branding started in the United States somewhere around the 1920s, rose to its peak
in the 1950s and then slowly met its decline till the end of the 1990s after which its
focus was shifted on to the Third World. This article aims at tracing out the various
socio-cultural or political factors or elements that contributed towards the Antibranding
Activism aroused among the target victims of the brands themselves
particularly in the United States of America. The anti-branding and anti-corporate
rage has been displayed, as unfolded by Naomi Klein, by a backlash of target
consumer masses via riots, denial of the branded products, reclamation of unbranded
space and vice versa. The same anti-branding rage reflected in the American fiction
is analysed here in selected fiction of Don Delillo