KEVIN07: Cool Politics, Consumer Citizenship, and the Specter of “Americanization” in Australia

Abstract

In this essay I examine the case study of “KEVIN07” t‐shirts, which became a brief sensation—as well as a locus of debate regarding the influence of “American” consumerism—during the 2007 Australian federal election. This phenomenon can be understood as both an example of a broad international trend toward the appropriation of consumer citizenship by formal political institutions and also as a localized and very particular instantiation of this trend that reveals a great deal about the Australian political and cultural context. Through an in‐depth analysis of how “KEVIN07” t‐shirts both capitulate to and negotiate the logic of consumer capitalism, I build upon the field of scholarship that has examined processes of hybridity in the so‐called “Americanization” of Australia.