Fuck you, television advertising
I fucking hate it I fucking hate I fucking hate it. The stupid voices. The over-the-top emotion. The bravado music. The stupid, fucking inanity. Every thirty seconds, a different advert, a different product, the same story.
Adverts grab your attention by the throat and force your head towards the screen. Each advert screams, WATCH ME! WATCH ME! like a succession of spoiled children at a birthday party.
Normal people can block adverts from their awareness. Right now, I can't. I'm hypersensitive to television commercials. Whenever they're on, I become angry. They're my trigger to kill people, like the words that activate Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier.
Why don't I just skip the adverts, switch off the television, or go to a different room, you say? Well, why don't you just sit right there instead, and I'll tell you why I hate advertising.
1. I hate advertising techniques
I could point out that adverts encourage us to spend more money than we actually have, and they make us depressed because they show us lives we can't afford, yadda yadda.
But what really makes me mad is their stupid gimmicks. Advertisers can't simply tell us the benefits of their products. Instead, they need techniques, like association. Association is when advertisers associate their product with something unrelated, like associating cigarettes with nature, or a sugary breakfast cereal with kids running in the park. Personally, I associate adverts with a big, steaming pile of bullshit.
Other techniques include: people smiling (to make you believe the product will make you happier), moronic models laughing (same), exciting music and animation (to grab your attention), 'funny' content (to make you go HA HA HA HA THAT'S SO FUNNY! as you wipe tears from your fat fucking face, and as your greasy fingers reach for the phone so you can order the product), and beautiful models (to make men go WOW! HUBBA HUBBA and women go *I wanna buy that product so I can be beautiful like her!*).
2. I hate sexy adverts
The latest advert driving me crazy is a lingerie advert. It shows a model lounging on a sofa, dressed only in her briefs and bra. She makes sexy, suggestive poses to the camera. This goes on for about twenty seconds. As a heterosexual man, in theory I should love this advert. But I don't. It's patronising. It's distracting. It's crude.
I also don't like shower lotion adverts - the softest of soft porn. There's usually a woman showering, her vagina and nipples carefully hidden behind her arms and legs. Now I realise you're trying to advertise shampoo, but there's a naked person on the screen. It's the afternoon. There are children watching. And I'm trying to work. Stop trying to distract me with naked women. Well, okay, maybe just one or two.
3. I hate irrelevant adverts
I hate the fact that most adverts are irrelevant to me. Adverts for cosmetics, children's toys, detergent, lottery tickets: all irrelevant. Also, I will probably never buy a sofa from DFS, no matter how many times I watch their adverts for their never-ending sales. And I hate that I have watched thousands of car adverts in my life, yet I've only ever bought one car, which was used.
4. I hate surprise endings that are repeated again, again and again
I also hate adverts with a twist ending. Because when that advert then repeats during every ad break for the next fortnight, I already know the ending. So the advert becomes redundant. I end up rolling my eyes, and sighing, "Not this fucking shit again" while I reach for another gin and tonic to drown my sorrows.
5. I hate that adverts are subjective
You might argue that advertising has a useful function: to tell us about new products. But that's ignoring the fact that most adverts don't provide much information. Instead, they appeal to our emotions with irrelevant stories and beautiful models.
Basically, adverts are bits of bling and tinfoil on a stick. Then a crazy man picks up that stick and waves it at you, yelling "Look at the shiny stick! Look at the shiny stick!" At the end of the advert, an adman proudly presents his product to you, with a big pompous grin on his perfect face. So I suggest this: let's get rid of the crazy man and the stick. Instead, adverts must present an objective list of the product's strengths and flaws, preferably in a bullet point format. Yes, what we need is OBJECTIVITY. So let's ban all the sleazy techniques that advertisers use: association, humour, emotional appeal, 'shockvertising', music effects, and eye-candy. And let's replace them instead with scientific evidence, reason, and information.
6. Advertising pays for free content, but I don't care
You might also argue that advertising pays for free content, like free television channels and free web content. Fuck that. There must be a better way. Pay per view. Subscription fees. Licensing fee. Donations. Drug money. Just get those adverts out of my face.
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