Advertising

There is an evil in our society, an insiduous evil that permeates our society so completely that we don't even notice it. It's all around us, but we don't notice it because it has become the norm. It is a constant humming in the background that we don't notice because we have become numb to it. This evil is ADVERTISING!!!

Okay, maybe not all advertising is evil, but some of it is.

Human children learn by watching those around them. They see some people that they admire, and they try to do what they do. They see other people that they dislike, and they try not to be like those people. This is a fundamental mechanism through which humans learn to get around in their world.

Advertisers take advantage of this to try to manipulate people into buying their products. Some examples:

• Mountain Dew has commercials where cool looking kids ride mountain bikes, or fly flying saucers, and then drink Mountain Dew. Kids who watch these commercials will see these great kids doing fantastic things and think: "Wow, that's what I want to be like". Then they see the kids drink Mountain Dew and they think: "Wow, I want to drink that". Of course, Mountain Dew has more caffeine than any other soda, and caffeine is addicting, so they're basically getting our kids hooked on drugs.



• Head and Shoulders had commercials where there was a good looking guy or girl, and another good looking guy or girl was interested in them until they saw the dandruff on their shoulder and were turned off by it. Then the person with dandruff discovers Head and Shoulders, and at the next party you see them chatting amicably with good looking members of the opposite sex.



• Joe Camel for Camel cigarettes.
  
  
• Virginia Slims suggesting that women aren't liberated unless they smoke Virginia Slims cigarettes.
  
  
• The Marleboro Man.

The point is that humans are basically very simple creatures with very simple learning processes. By tying into these learning processes, advertisers can get us to do just about anything they want. They're leading us around like cattle.

One set of advertisers gets us addicted to junk food by showing happy, fit, good looking people eating junk food, and that gets us fat. Then another group of advertisers makes us feel bad about being fat, and they show us a group of fit people exercising at a gym to make us think that we should go to a gym too. We're bouncing back and forth between wanting to eat that chocolate donut, then going to the gym to burn it off, spending money in both directions. It's a tug-of-war between the junk food sellers and the fitness clubs, with us in the middle.

Some people have remarked lately on the prevalence of obesity in our young people, especially among latinos. They exress alarm that this is happening, and then cry out that we need to do something about it. What we'll end up doing, of course, is spend more money on more advertising trying to get us to lead healthier lives, when what we really need to do is outlaw this manipulative type of advertising in the first place.

The ability to think for ourselves is what makes us who we are, and advertisers are taking that away from us. They are stealing our souls, and that is evil.