''Stay Free!'' was a non-profit magazine about the politics of culture based in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

History

Founded by Carrie McLaren in 1993 while working at

Matador Records Matador Records is an independent record label, with a roster of mainly indie rock, but also punk rock, experimental rock, alternative rock, and electronic acts. History Matador was created in 1989 by Chris Lombardi in his New York City apart ...

, it tends to focus on "the perversions of media and consumer culture." Each issue has a theme, such as

pranks A practical joke, or prank, is a mischievous trick played on someone, generally causing the victim to experience embarrassment, perplexity, confusion, or discomfort.Marsh, Moira. 2015. ''Practically Joking''. Logan: Utah State University Press. ...

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...

, or

marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

and past issues have included interviews with

Lawrence Lessig Lester Lawrence Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard ...

Negativland Negativland is an American experimental music band which originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s. They took their name from a Neu! track, while their record label (Seeland Records) is named after another Neu! track. The core ...

Stuart Ewen Stuart Ewen (born 1945) is a New York-based author, historian and lecturer on media, consumer culture, and the compliance profession. He is also a Distinguished Professor at Hunter College and the City University of New York Graduate Center, i ...

, and

Public Enemy "Public enemy" is a term which was first widely used in the United States in the 1930s to describe individuals whose activities were seen as criminal and extremely damaging to society, though the phrase had been used for centuries to describe p ...

.McLeod, Kembrew (May 2009)
Interview with Chuck D & Hank Shocklee of Public Enemy
''Stay Free!''. Archived fro

March 20, 2011. In March 2007, Carrie McLaren announced ''Stay Free!'' would no longer be published in print, though they would continue online. The last print issue appeared in 2008. The website is no longer online. In 2009, the editors of Stay Free! released the book ''Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture.'' The name was intended as an ironic homage to

Stayfree Stayfree is an American brand of feminine hygiene products, including maxi pads, ultra thin pads, and female wipes. On July 31, 2013, Energizer bought Stayfree from Johnson & Johnson Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is an American multinational corp ...

maxipads, though it is also the title of a song by

The Clash The Clash were an English rock band formed in London in 1976 who were key players in the original wave of British punk rock. Billed as "The Only Band That Matters", they also contributed to the and new wave movements that emerged in the wa ...

Other projects

To protest the expansion of

law, the magazine sponsored the

Illegal Art Illegal Art is a sampling record label that was started in 1998. The label gained immediate notoriety from legal threats surrounding '' Deconstructing Beck'', a compilation made exclusively from sampling Beck's music. This was followed by two ot ...

exhibition, website and compact disc, all featuring artists challenging copyright or art works which were the subject of copyright suits. ''Stay Free!'' also published a free media literacy curriculum.

Distribution

''Stay Free!'' was distributed in the coffee shops, book shops, and other commercial venues of Brooklyn. One magazine cost $2.95.

References

External links

Official website (archive)
Anti-consumerist groups Defunct political magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 1993 Magazines disestablished in 2008 Magazines published in New York City Online magazines published in the United States Online magazines with defunct print editions {{US-poli-mag-stub

History

Other projects

Distribution

See also

References

External links