No-Brands-Land

Klein was further impressed by the younger activists' sense of fun and by their talent for "culture jamming" -- parodying ads in order to challenge the message that those ads purported to tell. "They had grown up so immersed in advertising that they were finding ways to flip it against itself," she says. "There was way more of a sense of play -- using the principles of marketing to do antimarketing. They were able to 'de-fetishize' brands when all of these companies had spent enormous amounts of money to turn very basic products, such as a pair of khakis or a latte, into fetish objects." A student group at the University of Toronto known as the Media Collective blacked out the eyes on models displayed on every downtown billboard and turned their mouths into zippers, changing the faces into skulls. When ads were introduced into university bathrooms, members of the Media Collective formed the "Escher Appreciation Society" and then slipped photocopies of M.C. Escher prints in front of the ads. "They were basically telling people that they should take this time to enjoy art," Klein says with a laugh.

Though Klein is still an admirer of such culture jamming, she acknowledges that it can go too far -- as with "activists who think they're changing the world by blocking traffic," she says. Klein's assessment of the anticorporate movement as a whole is not entirely uncritical, and she wouldn't want it to be. "I have aligned myself with the goals of this movement," she says. "But my activism takes the form of writing and researching and developing ideas. It's important to me to maintain a distance from the movement so that I'm free to say what I think."

In general, Klein defies the negative stereotype of an activist. Speaking before crowds, she is articulate and funny. When asked by an audience member at the event organized by Keith Martin what she means exactly when she accuses banks of making "obscene profits," Klein quipped, "I don't have a definition of obscene -- I just know it when I see it." Yet even with her formidable intellect and her edgy sense of humor, Klein is not a particularly imposing presence. She is still young-looking enough that she could pass for a college student, and after responding to questions, she often folds her arms and tilts her head to one side in a way that is downright girlish. As Anne Golden, president of the Toronto chapter of the United Way of Canada, remarked to Klein onstage while thanking her for speaking at a recent event, "You're so charming and nonstrident!" It may sound like a vaguely sexist remark, but it's true -- Klein is unfailingly gracious and modest.

"I'm sort of a bridge between the respectable mainstream and the militant-activist world," Klein says, noting proudly that she just might be the first writer ever to have a book favorably reviewed in both London's Observer and in Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed. "I'd like to think the response to my book has been because I'm a really good writer, but I know it's more than that. It's because I don't show up to do television panels in overalls and dreadlocks. I'm palatable."

Not that Klein thinks everyone should be like her. "The movement needs hard-core, uncompromising radicals -- the ones who won't even talk to me because I'm such a sellout. I wouldn't be able to do what I do without those people. I'm totally reliant on their analysis and their actions, and I believe that we're working together. But the movement also needs people like me who are willing to make compromises and to get ideas out in a more accessible way."

Klein has indeed gotten ideas out, and she has heard back from many people who have been affected by her book. Young activists tell her that the book makes them feel stronger and bolsters their arguments against corporations with its facts and its logic. One fan that Klein met recently was an 18-year-old who said he had learned everything he knew about activism from listening to Rage Against The Machine -- and who told her that he carried No Logo with him at all times. Klein has also heard from teachers who say that they use her book to help fight back when companies try to enter their classrooms. The book was the focus of a sermon at the Judson Memorial Church in New York: "Holy One, here we are in the midst of plenty," the opening prayer began. "Here we are in the world capital of fashion. Here we are wanting to look good." It has inspired a song by the children's singer Raffi: "Tomorrow's children got no logo/Tomorrow's children are not for sale." It even has prompted a British bookstore to launch a line of No Logo T-shirts -- though, to Klein's dismay, the shirts were made by Fruit of the Loom, whose use of sweatshops is well documented.