Maybe it’s my age, but I’m more and more painfully aware of how many ways adverts pretend to be your friend. It’sv one of the most insipid and disingenuous things about modern society. The sheer ubiquity of charming voices trying to act like the common man, a chatty friend, a hapless discoverer of product X that offers you “up to” a benefit of… whatever.
The whole damn thing is just horrible and crap and predatory and wears down the soul, because my soul was programmed to be surrounded by a ‘clan’ motivated by my wellbeing (and I theirs in a meaningful way)
Actually… quite specifically it’s the “up to” thing that happens in adverts. “Up to 100% effective” the advert says. “Well what the hell does that mean?!” I yell at the telly. “Sometimes it’s 1% effective?? Why are you even talking to me about this thing?”. It’s ghoulish.
Capitalist propaganda has had decades to hone and refine their techniques for manipulation and deception, the only way to win is to not play their rigged game, but if you’re forced to because they’ve captured all of the resources under a government backed judiciary that’s purpose is to centralize wealth and power under a minority ownership class i think you’d be justified to take more drastic measures to subvert or remove their propaganda.
True, though I don’t think it’s just capitalism that causes this dishonesty. I think it’s any time there’s a depersonalised entity motivated to coerse people. And certainly that happens under capitalism. But you could point to centrally planned communist states peddling bullshit to people too.
I think the antidote (so far as practical ones go) - and speaking of the West - is to ‘shop local’. People find it harder to lie and be disingenuous when’s there’s a genuine relationship there besides the trade.
That’s the most egregious part about adverts (to me), things pretending to be my friend when there’s nothing there of the sort. It would be different if it’s an actual friend of mine suggesting this or that because they thought it would actually benefit me (and holding their tongue when they knew it wouldn’t)
I always hated ads with a passion. I don’t really know why, even back in the 90’s when these was like 2 commercials per movie or something. It never felt right. So much so that i went out of my way to cut out all the ads in the movies i vcr’d. I ditched TV pretty early, because i just wouldn’t have it.
But here is my question. These days, every youtuber and podcaster is basically a door to door salesman who just wan to sell sometimes quite literally shit to you. How do you continue to like people like that. I have my favourite podcasts, and i never want to hear any of their ads, because as much as i like them, they just spend 10min of their podcast lying to me and trying to sell me shit that they know is garbage. I’m not a parasocial guy, i know they are not my friends, but it still feels soooo dirty.
At least when they make the ad part of their show it’s easier to just skip forward past it (eg YouTube keyboard shortcut to skip forward ten seconds) It depends what you’re listening to really. A lot of content producers have made their peace with the fact that people are not going to pay for their content so some sort of spoken ad means they get some sort of return. I generally only listen to research / academic based shows where they have a separate patreon for ad-free episodes and discussions. I don’t mind paying for that where I think their content is worth it. That feels like a more honest exchange.
Maybe it’s my age, but I’m more and more painfully aware of how many ways adverts pretend to be your friend. It’sv one of the most insipid and disingenuous things about modern society. The sheer ubiquity of charming voices trying to act like the common man, a chatty friend, a hapless discoverer of product X that offers you “up to” a benefit of… whatever.
The whole damn thing is just horrible and crap and predatory and wears down the soul, because my soul was programmed to be surrounded by a ‘clan’ motivated by my wellbeing (and I theirs in a meaningful way)
Actually… quite specifically it’s the “up to” thing that happens in adverts. “Up to 100% effective” the advert says. “Well what the hell does that mean?!” I yell at the telly. “Sometimes it’s 1% effective?? Why are you even talking to me about this thing?”. It’s ghoulish.
/rant
Capitalist propaganda has had decades to hone and refine their techniques for manipulation and deception, the only way to win is to not play their rigged game, but if you’re forced to because they’ve captured all of the resources under a government backed judiciary that’s purpose is to centralize wealth and power under a minority ownership class i think you’d be justified to take more drastic measures to subvert or remove their propaganda.
True, though I don’t think it’s just capitalism that causes this dishonesty. I think it’s any time there’s a depersonalised entity motivated to coerse people. And certainly that happens under capitalism. But you could point to centrally planned communist states peddling bullshit to people too.
I think the antidote (so far as practical ones go) - and speaking of the West - is to ‘shop local’. People find it harder to lie and be disingenuous when’s there’s a genuine relationship there besides the trade.
That’s the most egregious part about adverts (to me), things pretending to be my friend when there’s nothing there of the sort. It would be different if it’s an actual friend of mine suggesting this or that because they thought it would actually benefit me (and holding their tongue when they knew it wouldn’t)
I always hated ads with a passion. I don’t really know why, even back in the 90’s when these was like 2 commercials per movie or something. It never felt right. So much so that i went out of my way to cut out all the ads in the movies i vcr’d. I ditched TV pretty early, because i just wouldn’t have it.
But here is my question. These days, every youtuber and podcaster is basically a door to door salesman who just wan to sell sometimes quite literally shit to you. How do you continue to like people like that. I have my favourite podcasts, and i never want to hear any of their ads, because as much as i like them, they just spend 10min of their podcast lying to me and trying to sell me shit that they know is garbage. I’m not a parasocial guy, i know they are not my friends, but it still feels soooo dirty.
At least when they make the ad part of their show it’s easier to just skip forward past it (eg YouTube keyboard shortcut to skip forward ten seconds) It depends what you’re listening to really. A lot of content producers have made their peace with the fact that people are not going to pay for their content so some sort of spoken ad means they get some sort of return. I generally only listen to research / academic based shows where they have a separate patreon for ad-free episodes and discussions. I don’t mind paying for that where I think their content is worth it. That feels like a more honest exchange.