Advertising

*inspired by a friend, I have written a stream-of-consciousness, slightly edited for clarity. I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you do too.



At the core of the issue, I hate being told what to do. Advertising plays with and preys on human emotion because appealing to the least common denominator attracts the most people, generating the most sales. While it is understandable and necessary for advertising to enlist consumers to find a product or service that they want, too often advertising is used to tell people what they want, are, or should be. They do not create unique thought or discussion, they create followers to a cult, especially considering the cultural implications of consumption: mac vs. PC, hybrid vs. hummer, monkeys vs. robots.

The difference between what is the best product and what is the most profitable is exemplified by every failure of a company that had shown record profits the month before. The company (or person, or gadget, or whatever) becomes the baby of the world, everyone talks about it, it’s loved, it’s hated, it’s debated, it’s masturbated. The ever-decreasing attention span of the public consciousness is fixed for 14 seconds of viral fame, and the bubble grows. But just as the retraction does not erase the sex-crime allegations, nor does the apology negate the act, once the bubble has burst, the impression of a success which is actually unachievable remains, the standards are raised, and the hard-working creators of a genuine product are squeezed even harder.

The purveyors that I respect are the ones that are not after the most money they can acquire by whatever means possible. It is the ones that are genuinely trying to create good. The ones that create for the sake of creation. These are the people willing to try something because at the very least it will make their own lives better, and the process is enriched by sharing. These entities realize that they are part of a whole community, a system, a –cosm. Money is only one aspect of that system. It is another form of energy. These people realize that bigger is not always better, and that life is not worth missing to race some rats. Money is a tool used to barter for actual things, not an end to itself.

Competition has its place, and we are creatures of nature, a system that is constantly at war for energy and survival. But to provoke the tired argument of the human condition, I would pose that we are in fact somehow removed from a pure natural condition. To pinpoint this transition is beyond the scope of this essay, but human beings have the opportunity to collaborate and create something better than a man-eat-man world. Are we using all of our resources to create the best environment we can? No- those in power will not give up their power because of their sense of entitlement. There is the constant struggle between doing what is right and what is easy. And I tire so quickly of the arguement that something is the best, especially when judging is as subjective as humans (the general distaste for judged events at the Olympics are one example) would be a point which could be argued until the end of time.

And that’s what we’re drawn to – conflict, drama, excitement, action, humorous juxtapositions, emotion. These are the tools that are used to gain our attention and tell us that our penis is too small, our period is too embarrassing or uncomfortable, we can lose our fat ass with a fat-ass pill, we should buy fried fat from one corporation instead of another, or that we’re missing out on the next best thing.

The message they sell is this: You’re not OK without _____

And how much crap do we have that we don’t need? Look around you and count out the things that use daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. And then see how much you have left over that you don’t know why you still have. Now make a trip to your local second-hand store.

You’re OK.