When people say, "Have you seen that ad where…", well, I never have. I only watch PBS and DVDs unless tied to a chair ala Alex in Clockwork Orange. I loathe advertising with the kind of loathing one might reserve for Marmite, or David Hasselhoff. I change radio stations if an ad comes on. I like ad filtering software. Billboards drive me crazy. I can stand print ads a little better, only because I can turn the page.
When I taught Freshman English, students did an essay in which they analyzed (or tried to, at least) an ad. This was something like, to paraphrase the awesome Sut Jhally, trying to get a fish to critique water–first they had to comprehend the medium they were blissfully saturated by. My expressed dislike of ads was always met by statements like, "But how else are we supposed to find out about new stuff?"
Where do you start with that kind of programming already in place?
Now and then, some new abomination thought up by the pinstriped morons who haunt PR seminars comes to light. I always get a blood pressure spike. In 2001, there were the great parents who tried to auction off to the highest-bidding company the right to name their child (I believe young Microsoft, had their disgusting effort succeeded, would one day, after 30-something years of therapy, have divorced his parents). The article notes that a survey of American parents revealed that around half of them would be glad to offer companies the same chance. There was also the plan to put scrolling ads in orbit–that nimrod, drooling over the latest Nielsen ratings, will almost certainly necessitate the reviving of Dante to create a new circle of hell just for nimrods.
And now there’s this attempt at ruining the skies anew, now with floating, cloud-like foam logos. (The article, like most of what passes for journalism in our intellectually impoverished land, is entirely uncritical in that weakly witty fashion of the starry-eyed scribe who’s been co-opted by the PR juggernaut.) There goes summering at the Cape, where already the peaceful enjoyment of the day is shattered by some dillhole in a cropduster loudly dragging along some sign about a car rally every 20 minutes. We Americans have a bad habit of taking what could be interesting technology and quickly finding a way to exploit it to infleunce an audience who will be inspired, nay compelled by seeing a floating "Fubu" to go empty the piggy bank and suit up in some sort of vinyl travesty. But hey, the cloud made me do it.
We have imaginations with massive engines but only one gear.
Stop ruining my world, you logo-livered semi-human excrescences. Go crawl back into your cubicles and surround yourselves with the shiny baubles of your successful campaigns. Just stay away from the clouds and stars or I’ll come make you watch Masterpiece Theater until you puke.
