Dada is an art philosophy that rebels against form, reason, conservatism, capitalism, and gatekeeping in the art world. It aims for social change through art, and dismisses morality, reason, and conventional art aesthetics. Dada has a lot to say about the relationship between consumerism and art. It's against both.
The word itself is random and means nothing, except that Dada is also an international movement, and the word has meaning in several languages. A hobby horse in french, a sarcastic "sure, whatever" in Romanian and Russian, etc. Dada itself is personified by nothing. It also represents the concept of life in the abstract.
People who practice this philosophy are called Dadaists. Dadaists are non-conformist art nerds that have a bone to pick with injustice. But Dada is open to everyone, even its adversaries. Our ultimate goal is to burn down and utterly destroy the ideals of the art world and turn reality itself inside out with cartoon physics and blunt household objects.
It is the grandfather of every subversive art movement there's ever been, and will continue to piss in the face of the smug, closed minded establishment types that reassuringly tell themselves it died in the nineteen thirties... because any imagining of a modern contemporary Dada scares the holy bejeebers out of them.
Dada is the blunt weapon, and the artistic heritage of malcontents and overachieving art nerds with an axe to grind and a point to prove.
We will change the world with nothing.
We have nothing to contribute.
And nothing will become of us all.
Dada is life.