Advertising's HUGE influence!

Speaking of ignorant, can we all agree that the "HEAD ON APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD" ads gotta go? I mean come on... this is just plain criminal operant conditioning on the elderly. Who's watching these things and does it lower my FICO score if I buy 'em?

If you want me to assess the character of the audience, you've come to the wrong place. I'm as indifferent to the population as a whole as marketers are to the created process. I advise: critical thinking replaces itself with habituation when marketers are on the loose.

Now I consider myself fortunate for having a family situation where my folks were older-ish, talked to me like an adult earlier, and got my critical thinking skills going early. Plus... we didn't get cable till I was late on in middle school, so the tube blinked less when it needed to be off and sheltered me from the scorn of marketing.

So no, I'm not targetted, per se, but damn if I ever feel threatened for the sakes of others by the marketing going on in TV land today.

I honestly miss the days when the pitch was just straight shooting, y'know the two-tone days when the shmuck just grinned at you, read the lines impeccably, and then the camera panned back to the set and the actors started their next lines. NO big deal at all!

At night the silliness is kicked up into hyper gear, the tone of each commercial has got every weak, low self-esteem group categorized. It's hard to believe there is even a class of people who capable of buying these workout gimmicks, life insurance rip-offs, or easy money schemes in the numbers to recoup the losses suffered from their awful late-night commercials. Then I remember just -how- big the country is, and I realize each time, "yeah there's a schmuck for that, too."

I worry that it's gotten too close to the bottom line, and that's a discussion for a different post. Here I would want to focus just on the phenomenal aspect of it, what it -feels- like to be marketed to, and whether any of us can, are, or should be categorized to so indifferently.

May your fads be plentiful,
Amen.