A Button With No Message

Black text on white background.

Since its modern creation in 1896 by Whitehead and Hoag, pin back buttons were used to spread messages, and to attract the attention of others; at times by declaring potentially controversial viewpoints to complete strangers. At the beginning, they were employed for political and ad campaigns for commercial products. Quickly they began to spread into other areas that included grassroot causes, activism, entertainment, music, humorous, ice breakers, self-referential, self-expressive, among other uses, The1960s and 1970s counterculture were a prolific time for protest buttons including the Free Speech Movement, women’s rights, gay rights, sexual freedom, the Vietnam war, etc. Moreover, during the countercultural 60s and 70s, it was created a fresh style of self-referential humor with phrases such as “Don’t you feel like nut reading a button with no message” that expressed a less political and a more personally self-expressive point of view. In the 1980’s and 1990s, buttons allowed users to express snotty humor without saying a word in novelty shops around the country.