Stick It to the Man for Fun

Stick It To The Man for Fun

by John Kendall Hawkins

Dissent Pins is a company that wants to 'message' its disapproval of un-American government doings by wearing ornamental disruptions of obeisance and acceptance; pins that subtly say, No Way, Jose!

Nick Jehlen owns Dissent Pins. He describes the inspiration for the start-up:

In the week following the 2016 election, I heard one story that inspired me. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has a special collar she wears on days when she dissents from decisions being handed down by the Supreme Court...Justice Ginsburg wore her "dissent collar" on November 9, 2016, a day when no opinions were read.

Then on January 28, 2017, just after Trump was inaugurated and initiated a travel ban for 7 nations into the US, "hundreds of lawyers volunteered their time at airports across the United States" to help people detained at airports, which the ACLU described as illegal and unconstitutional [NYT]. Placards were everywhere. Together, RBG and the ACLU, up against the common cause of Trump as president, helped inspire Dissent Pins.

Jehlen started out his 'cause' career with Jethro Heiko in a start-up called Common Practice, which sought to develop inclusive brainstorming games and conversation starters. This led to the creation of the games Hello and My Gift of Grace which have been used, says Jehlen, by families and organizations around the world to support more and better conversations about living and dying well. Hello has been a huge success. The game has been an especially useful tool for Advance Care Planning (ACP), "an important process that involves discussing and documenting one's values and preferences for medical care, particularly end-of-life treatments," that has been approvingly peer-reviewed. The Journal of Pain and Symptom Management has concluded that "Patients who engage in ACP are more likely to receive end-of-life care that is consistent with their wishes, families of patients who perform ACP have reduced psychological distress after surrogate decision making, and ACP lowers societal end-of-life health care costs by up to 36%."

Win-win-win. Serious stuff. Although Jehlen swears that many of these seemingly doom and gloom conversations have brought levity and joy in people as well.

Dissent Pins has expanded way beyond simple pins that needle to now include T-shirts, magnets, charms, yard signs, caps and Covid masks and other games. Jehlen has produced a major hit by making fun of the conspiracy theory craze that has hit America like a Covid variant in a mini-skirt. People are nuts for the game. Losing it. Busting a gut. Then in stitches.

Jehlen is determined to bring levity, and the joy of going Nah, Nah to The Man, back into the political theatre and I salute him. Plus, 50% of the proceeds of each pin or object goes to a cause. Thus far Dissent Pins has paid out $876,851 to these organizations.

Here is an edited interview I had with Nick Jehlen on November 18, 2022.

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John Hawkins:

Dissent Pins sounds like a gas to work for and at. Who thought of the concept?

Nick Jehlen:

I've always really enjoyed making tangible stuff. And this [project] just happened to sort of collide with making tangible stuff and making goofy messaging. It's a weird sort of cross between really sincere stuff and really weird messaging and commentary. So, it's this nice thing where if I have a weird idea, I get to make it. And, every once in a while, one of those weird ideas catches on. We sell a ton of them and then we make some money, too. But it's sort of like, you know, it's just a fun project that keeps on going.

Hawkins:

Right. Well, what a great way to spread liberty and political theater. Abbie Hoffman would we be mostly proud. I say 'mostly', because Abbie took it to the street, but still even though for you it's more of a studio thing, people are wearing your pins around and your t-shirts out there and people are goofing again.

Jehlen:

I'm a little bit too young to remember [Abbie's theatre], but I do think that there is an element of fun and parody missing [now]. And I don't know that there's a better way to handle fascists than making fun of them. And I think that that is in the spirit of what Abbie was doing. So, I don't know that I would necessarily say I'm channelling Abbie, but definitely, since I was a little kid, that's always been the stuff I've been really interested in: How do you make fun of people in power?

Hawkins:

Yeah. Not taking The Man too seriously. There's a lot of levity and a lot of joy sort of left out now. I guess, maybe it's because of the calamity we find ourselves in. Maybe it's not so funny anymore, but, still, it's good to see people like you trying.

Jehlen:

Well, I don't think the threat of nuclear war [in the 60s] was particularly funny either, but still, there's got to be a way to find joy; [it's] an element that is missing from politics. And it's an important part of building any kind of community. So I don't claim that we're doing some kind of amazing work. But I do think that there's a place for laughter and joy.

Hawkins:

Dissent Pins supports myriad causes. Can you say more about some of these causes and how you go about divvying up proceeds. Some causes get more than others. How do you decide?

Jehlen:

Well, divvying up is relatively simple because it's all based on how much we sell of each thing. Each pin or product supports a particular cause or a particular set of organizations. So, I just have a spreadsheet and I can tell at the end of the year how much profit we've made off of each one, and that's how it gets off. Now, except for the Ukraine products, we give 50% of the proceeds . For Ukraine, we give 100% of the profits . Sometimes I give a little extra. At the end of the year, I have a little slush fund to be able to support organizations that I think are doing really good work [but may not have made much money with the pins]. And I try really hard to find organizations that are relatively small that are doing work that I admire. And that's it; there's no reporting . I'm not a donor who wants [or] needs them to tell me what they're doing. I just want to pay the rent. I want to pay for heat. I want to pay for pizza.

Like, the whole original idea behind this was I saw an organization that was working when the United States tried to cut off immigration from particular countries early in the Trump administration. And I saw lawyers sitting at JFK Airport on the ground, you know. Doing their work. And I just felt like, you know, those are the people I want to get behind. I want to get behind the people and, you know, like buy them dinner, you know, make sure they have the good Internet connection and stuff like that. So, I look out for organizations that I admire and I try and give them as much money as we can.

Hawkins:

That's fantastic. Is it a full-time thing or just sort of a project on the side?

Jehlen:

This is a full-time gig for me now. I do work on this other game, which is called Hello. But really, Dissent Pins supports that game now, and it supports all the other stuff that I do. I have one employee, besides me, Madeline. The two of us sort of team up on most of these different things. Madeleine's been with me for six years, I think. They do customer service. They do all the wholesale support, but they also help design products now, which is really, really fun. So, there's two of us full time. And then we also have contractors and other people that help us out too.

Hawkins:

Can you say more about Hello? Because it sounds like a great game for classrooms and ice-breaking meetings.

Jehlen:

Hello is the thing I'm really the proudest of. It's a very simple conversation game that helps people just have one good conversation about death and dying. And I designed it with three other designers. We used to work together in a business called Common Practice, and we designed it because we felt like we needed it ourselves. And, it's not nearly as successful as Dissent Pins, but we've sold tens of thousands of copies of it, and it's used in all sorts of places. It's been translated into Thai; it's been translated into Czech. There are a lot of people using it, but it's not a big money-maker. It's a big money loser, really. But I'm still really proud of it. And I love it when people use it to start these really challenging conversations, which wind up being really beautiful conversations in a lot of cases.

Hawkins:

So, the central topic would be death and dying?

Jehlen:

It's about death and dying. I mean, any conversation about death and dying is also about life and living and joy and stuff like that. And I think that's the secret behind its success: people go into it thinking, Oh, this is going to be a really morbid conversation. And I have played it literally a thousand times. I have never sat down and had a conversation, had a group of people play the game, and not have there be a lot of laughter. In fact, we played sometimes in big conference rooms with dozens of tables playing, hundreds of people playing. And the hardest part is making sure that you get a conference room that has a little bit of soundproofing on it because it will start bothering the other people around you because people get really kind of raucous and there's a lot of laughter; a lot of people really enjoying themselves, and then stopping the game is really challenging, because people really want to keep having these deep conversations that they never thought that they could have.

Hawkins:

Yeah, well, we need more of that. Maybe we should have like a month off each year -- off the grid -- you know, just to reconnect with each other. Yeah.

"Secret Jewish Space Laser" spells Jewish humor at work.

Jehlen:

The Secretary Space Laser is one of those ones [pins] where I just, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene said something really stupid, and I thought, you know, like, honestly, the original product was a little a scale model of the laser. So, a little cat toy, really. And I just designed the logo to go on the packaging for that. And everybody really liked the logo. So, I was like, Oh, I'll make some pens and stuff like that. I thought we were going to make a couple of hundred. It's still [selling] years later; people really got into it. There's an amateur hockey team that uses the secret Jewish space lasers as their logo. There's an antique vintage racing car team that uses it. I mean, it's really caught on. And I think there's something really powerful about turning upside down what was clearly an anti-Semitic remark, something clearly meant as an insult, into something that we sort of [take pride in making fun of]. It carried our business for a full year. It continues to be one of our best sellers years later.

Hawkins:

You write on your webpage: "Justice Ginsburg wore her 'dissent collar' on November 9, 2016, a day when no opinions were read." Isn't this 'activist' Judging, and shouldn't it be discouraged?

Jehlen:

Yes. Yes. It should not be discouraged. It should not be encouraged. When the justices who are on the other side do stuff like this, I hate it. It was the wrong thing to do. But there's something about it that's sort of clever and it sort of turns the knife a little bit. So it is absolutely the wrong thing to do. And anybody who says that Justice Ginsburg should not have done that is correct.

Hawkins:

But you still enjoy it.

Jehlen:

It still makes me laugh. I don't know. I think she revelled in her fame. And I think there is something incredibly subversive about a small, older woman revelling in fame. So, like, I don't there's lots of things I don't agree with her about, but there's something so joyful about it that, even though I know it's wrong, I can't resist it.

Hawkins:

Yeah, I know, it's naughty, but cool.

Tell me about the plan to tear down Fenway Park and how you and your friends saved the Green Monster for future generations. I bristle when I hear about such plans. When I heard about how the 1% wanted to rebuild the burnt out Notre Dame cathedral with a rooftop swimming pool, I almost berserked in my pants.

Jehlen:

First of all, there were a lot of people working on that campaign, but Jethro Heiko was working for the Fenway Community Development Corporation. Jethro was my business partner up until about two years ago, and we worked together for many, many years. There's this big thing where sports teams get cities and states to give them tons of money to tear down neighborhoods and build these monstrosities. And the Fenway neighborhood stood up against it. And the short story is they were able to convince the city and the state that this was not a good idea. But not only that, they planned an alternative. They got community members to get together with a group of architects. And they actually planned a whole alternative vision for what Fenway could be as opposed to this knocking it down and destroying half the neighborhood. And that's where Fenway Park is now. Those plans are basically what Fenway Park has been converted into. And it was amazing. I can't take very much credit for it. I was along the sidelines. I helped with some writing and some design and stuff like that. But that was a community that got together and stopped something that I don't [believe] anybody thought they were going to be able to stop. The money was lined up, it was ready to go, and this community stepped forward and saved their own neighborhood. I learned a lot from that campaign about public action, about messaging, and stuff like that.

Hawkins:

Yeah, it sounds like a good fight and a Feel Good outcome. So, probably everybody is proud that they went along with the community's feelings.

Jehlen:

What happened was that the Red Sox got sold right around that time. And the new owners came in, said, yes, we're going to do [what the community wants]. And then a few years later had a big celebration of it, brought all the community members together and gave each of them a brick from Fenway Park. Like, they completely bought into it. They just said, you know, this was the right plan. You know, I don't think you see that very often for developers to really acknowledge a community's part in creating something really valuable. So, yeah, the Red Sox, I think, acknowledged that this was the right thing to do.

Hawkins:

Winter Soldier was a thrill ride. Will you have similar trip for Ukraine -- you know, US military contractors talking shop?

Jehlen:

Jethro and I were staff members, for a couple of years, for Iraq Veterans Against the War. We were on the organizing committee for Winter Soldier. My job was on the technical side. I helped to build a website and make sure it was streaming all over the world. And Jethro was working a lot on the support side and helping make sure that people's mental health was being taken care of during this multi-day event. I'm very proud of that work. I feel like we supported a bunch of veterans and active service members coming together to tell the truth about what was happening [in Iraq and Afghanistan], and I hope that more of that happens. It is imperative that it be led by the people who are directly affected by it -- veterans and people on the ground who have been directly affected by the war. The war in Ukraine is a sort of unique moment where the messaging around it is being driven a lot by the people who are on the ground. I don't think that happens very often. There are other wars that are happening right now that are just not getting as much attention. And I think it's worth talking about why they're not getting attention. And also make sure that the people who are directly affected by it get a voice. So, I hope there will be more stuff like Winter Soldier, but that was me supporting other people doing that rather than me leading the way.

Hawkins:

What a vast array of products. I felt pride burst through when I saw that Goyim Squad tee shirt. (Maybe think about going with a tank top with "muscle tuff" as the logo.)

Jehlen:

In our product development, we get some ideas from our customers. A lot of it is, you know, I see something stupid and I try and figure out what to do with it; or I see somebody do something really inspiring and I try and talk to them about how to do something with it. The conspiracy theory stuff has definitely hit a nerve. So we have some more conspiracy theory stuff that's in development. It'll be here early next year. There are two sides of the business. There's, you know, doing the sort of weird, goofy stuff, the conspiracy theory stuff, and all of that, and then there's also figuring out whose voices we can turn into a pen or turn into a t shirt or into something so that we can try elevate the conversation a little bit. I'm the voice on the weird conspiracy theory stuff, but I kind of want other people to be the voice when it comes to stuff that's directly affecting them.

Hawkins:

The conspiracy theory kits sort of tie into the attempt to control the dialogue and the narrative around things like Ukraine and domestic problems going on like January 6. Some people take that far more seriously than I do. Watching it unfold, I thought, If that's what a revolution looks like we're in deep sh*t. You see the guy in the Viking hat, and wonder if that's the direction we're going as a culture, you know? Messaging, right?

Jehlen:

He's doing messaging. It's just, you know, like, what is the message behind that?

Hawkins:

You could probably do a dissent pin with that guy.

Jehlen:

The weird thing about January 6th -- I was glued to my computer watching it all happen. And I think that there's this weird thing where there are some really serious complaints to be made about how government functions, about our elected officials, and it just felt to me like the people who were being loudest had a completely different critique than I would have ever come up with. It's hard because, like, you know, like, t's putting me in a position of having to defend the leadership of the Democratic National Party. I want to be more subversive than that. I think there's a real problem with people who don't believe in democracy. And I think making fun of them and making clear that democracy is actually something that we value is imperative. It's really, really important. And not just January six, but every day since I've felt like the reality is that so many people in this country don't believe in democracy at all. Isn't this terrifying? I mean, I am genuinely scared of that. I think it's a good thing that so many people who have supported January 6 lost in the midterm elections, but they didn't lose by much -- it was way too close.

Hawkins:

Even with Trump in 2020, there were four states that were within a 1% difference in the votes and had automatic recounts. Had it not been for Covid-19 and millions more people mailing their votes and forcing attention to be paid to these provisional votes, Trump could have won. Trump talked about the election being stolen. It was stolen in the sense that the usually the Republicans are able to throw away a bunch of Black and university and Latino votes, that don't get counted at all.

Jehlen:

So that's the thing, you need an overwhelming number of votes to win an election now. And, it's very important that we talk about that [vote suppression] because I think the number of people who believe that it's okay is just shockingly high.

Hawkins:

It really is. Chomsky. That's one of his three things. You know, climate change, the threat of nuclear war and the end of democracy. He says we need to forget 911, forget all of these other conspiracy theory-oriented things, but we should really be concerned with these three things. And here we are with people afraid we might have another Cuban missile crisis on their hands in Ukraine. And so, you know, Chomsky's going to be missed. And soon, Ralph Nader's gone. We're running out of people who still have that spirit of idealism from the sixties and seventies. So it's really great to see that you're subversive motherf*cker, and I hope you keep up the good work.

Jehlen:

I appreciate the compliment. That's a very nice thing to say.

Hawkins:

Thanks for bringing out some fun. It's great. It's subversive in its own way. It revels in free expression, which is the First Amendment. And this is who we are as a people. That's what we have over other countries, other places that have democracies. We love free expression, and this is a way of showing it. And we can see that it can be subversive and supportive of democratic values at the same time.

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https://dissentpins.com/

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