The US is in a kind of tough place right now. Let’s see: unemployment is hovering around 10%, not only idling millions of workers but keeping millions more stuck in jobs they don’t like; it’s shaping up to be the hottest summer on record in many parts of the country; and, to top it all off, traffic is getting worse as local governments run out of money to invest in public transit and new roads. Add these (and many, many other) factors up, and it’s no secret why your average American is a little on edge these days.

So when JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater made a dramatic exit from his job on Tuesday, delivering an expletive-laced tirade to passengers over the intercom before grabbing a beer from the service cart and sliding down the plane’s emergency chute, it wasn’t surprising when he became something of a cause celebre. A Facebook fan group established after the news broke on Tuesday now has nearly 200,000 fans, and there’s talk of a legal defense fund (Slater was cited for public endangerment). Slater has been hounded by reporters and paparazzi since being released on bond, and his relatives have made the talk-show rounds.

On the same day, pictures surfaced on TheChive.com (slightly NSFW language), ostensibly of a young woman quitting her job via e-mail in similarly dramatic fashion. She poses for around 30 pictures, each picture featuring a different message written on a dry erase board she’s holding. In the process of quitting, she calls out her boss for, among other things, sexual harassment and spending large chunks of the work week playing the social game FarmVille. Although it turns out that the whole thing was a hoax, it clearly captured the imagination of a lot of people; nearly 500,000  have shared the post on Facebook as of this writing.

We all love a good quitting story, but two high-profile ones in one week speaks to a deeper public dissatisfaction. Our friends at Iconoculture have noticed the same thing, and this week they presented some timely research on “subversive branding” – how to put a little edge in your brand to appeal to those for whom life is, well, more than a little frustrating.

They’ve developed a “subversion spectrum” – a two-axis way of visualizing how your brand can take advantage of subversion. Think about whether the brand is niche or mainstream, then think about whether subversion is an embedded aspect of your brand (i.e., did you start out with the idea of subverting the marketplace?) or an adapted aspect. Here’s the subversion spectrum for Moosejaw, a retailer of outdoor goods in the Midwest (and among your author’s favorite brands):

Their key takeaways on how to make subversion a part of your brand?

• Use subversion to deliver on adjacent values like fun, self-expression, nonconformity, attitude and novelty.
• Evaluate category and demographic norms to see where the boundaries (and possibilities) lie. In other words, don’t try to subvert the elderly.
• Find your position on the subversion spectrum and focus on a strategy that balances the personalities of the brand and the target audience.

MLC members, for more Iconoculture insights, please visit our newly-launched microsite. For more information on how to add Iconoculture’s advisory services to your market research arsenal, please contact your account manager.

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