Occupy Protester

Photograph by Sarah Mason

Image was on cover of Time Magazine 2011 Person of the Year Issue

Shepard Fairey altered his work stylistically and semantically into the OBEY Giant. This was also to become iconic and a decisive move in Fairey's career, particularly in subsequent works that featured the ‘Obey’ word without any associated image. In a manifesto he wrote in 1990, and since posted on his website, he links his work with Heidegger's concept of phenomenology. His "Obey" Campaign draws from the John Carpenter movie They Live which starred pro wrestler Roddy Piper, taking a number of its slogans, including the "Obey" slogan, as well as the "This is Your God" slogan. Fairey has also spun off the OBEY clothing line from the original sticker campaign. He also uses the slogan "The Medium is the Message" borrowed from Marshall McLuhan.

The 'Obey' sticker campaign was an experiment in phenomenology. Shepard Fairey says, "The 'Obey' campaign had no meaning, except to cause people to react, to contemplate and search for meaning. The intention was to provoke people through disassociating words with images that normally have an underlying motive (i.e. to sell a product)."

Shepard Fairey was responding to the effects of subliminal commercialism on audiences, prompting them to question their own role in digesting and utilizing information and to get them to think beyond their own existence. Subsequently, the 'Obey Giant' campaign, which was posted throughout the streets of California, led to the artist's arrest on a number of occasions (as it is essentially a form of graffiti); an effect, which resonates in many of his more contemporary works as well.