This introductory essay primarily spotlights a form of dissent that is prevalent in our consumer culture: smaller brands’ contestation of the messages embedded in bigger, more popular, brands’ products. Big brands often classify the expressive contestation small brands communicate through their products as trademark infringement. This is problematic because that contestation plays a key role in the dissent that is fundamental to our contemporary cultural heritage. This essay explores how frustrating contestation in consumer culture compromises dissent and, by extension, the cultural heritage of consumer culture. It also explores how the concept of trademark use within U.S. trademark law may, by extension, compromise dissent’s important role within consumer culture. In addition to the “Wavy Baby” example, the essay spotlights the MetaBirkins as a case study. It also entertains the ways in which gatekeeping of more established cultural heritage, like the Uffizi and Galleria dell’Accademia’s gatekeeping of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Michelangelo’s David, may compromise the contestation that is fundamental to dissent within consumer culture and the cultural heritage that consumer culture creates.