• The New York Times, Monday, December 5, 2011 9:20 AM

Kalle Lasn, the longtime editor of the British Columbia-based Adbusters magazine, is behind the "Occupy" brand. Last summer, when the Arab Spring began and the economy struggled, Lasn and colleagues created a new hash tag on Twitter: #OCCUPYWALLSTREET. They made a poster showing a ballerina dancing on the back of the muscular sculptured bull near Wall Street in Manhattan. They were Lasn's tools to create a cultural message, or meme.

“There’s a number of ways to wage a meme war,” Lasn said in an interview. “I believe that one of the most powerful things of all is aesthetics.”

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