Strong words, but those of a very great and enlightened comedian, Mr Bill Hicks, god rest his soul. If you have heard Bill on stage you will know quite how funny AND smart he was... and now we live in the digital age, and how RIGHT he was too!!! It is safe to say that advertising runs the world nowadays, and is responsible for most of the misinformation and disinformation that we have to live by. It''s amazing really how much money is poured in to Advertising, and the extent to which it now controls what we see, and most of the information we read and see. It's getting to the point that we see more covert advertising today than we do anything else, with it getting quite hard to scroll through any page without having to try to avoid it. Advertising has put huge pressures on fake news, and has led to the proliferation of fake news and total fabrications by those simply seeking to get clicks and views. In this post i would like to take a look at this phenomenon, and also understand why Bill was not joking when he spoke those words.
"By the way, if anyone here’s in advertising or marketing... kill yourself. [audience approval] Thank you. Just a little thought... Kill yourself. Seriously though, if you are [in advertising/marketing], do [kill yourself — laughter] ... There's no rationalisation for what you do and you’re Satan's little helpers, OK? Kill yourself, seriously. You’re the ruiner of all things good, seriously... No, this is not a joke. You're going: “there's gonna to be a joke coming”. There's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan’s spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your soul. Kill yourself. [applause, laughter] ... I know all the marketing people are going, “he's doing a joke”... There’s no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail pipe, hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend. I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking machinations.
I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart." [laughter] Oh man, I’m not doing that, you fucking evil scumbags. "Ooh, you know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've done research. Huge market. He's doing a good thing." Goddammit, I'm not doing that, you scumbags. Quit putting a goddamn dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet! "Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market. Bill's very bright to do that." God, I'm just caught in a fucking web. "Ooh, the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market. Look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar..." God, how do you live like that? I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don't you? "What did you do tonight honey?" "Oh, we made ah, we made ah, arsenic ah, childhood food now, goodnight." [lies down and snores] "Yeah, we just said you know is your baby really too loud? You know?" [snores] "Yeah, it'll... you know the mums will love it." [snores] [stands up] Sleep like fucking children, don't you? This is your world isn't it?"
This sentiment was back in 1980s, well before we had the INTERNET and its ability to manipulate our minds and our lives in ways that most people are totally unaware. Advertising is used in so many ways, and today it is about a lot more than just trying to sell us things. Today advertising is used to manipulate our minds and gain control of what and how we think. Make no mistake, advertising IS brainwashing, quite literally. It is not only used to sell products, but has brought about the greatest threat to our sanity and personal esteem. Today people are ashamed to show their bodies, because of advertising. Today we have NO Idea what is real or fake news because of advertising. IT is used at times simple as a vehicle to making money via clicks. Put a really extreme piece of fake news up and everyone will click to your page.. which is covered in adverts for things people don't want or need and make money!
Most companies who advertise these days study brainwashing at a very high level. NLP and hypnotism are all a standard part of creating a good advert, where ads are crafted very carefully to elicit a certain feeling, and response. Most people are really helpless against it, it is too powerful and too much expertise is focused on it. Today technology is getting SO advanced that AI is being used to further enhance their effectiveness and basically control our minds. This is more than just selling us things, it is now about controlling us and our behaviours.
Isn't it interesting how Google used to have the company Motto "Don't Do Evil" and yet their entire business model is based around showing us ads and sponsored information from god knows who trying to sell us more junk we don't need, putting people into further dept and cause ever more environmental catastrophe. It is fair to say that advertising is the source of what is killing out planet and our minds. Marketing attempts to manipulate you into spending on something that, if you considered all the relevant factors, you wouldn't spend on. Generic aspirin costs less than a penny per pill while the pharmacologically identical, equally FDA approved Bayer aspirin costs 700 percent more.
Advertising is even responsible for making us vote for people and ideas we would not even vote for. Donald Trump is a prime example, as is BREXIT .. both of these were total manipulated via targeted advertising to make us think a certain way and react to it. That is serious stuff, we are WAY past just buying things now. Celebrity endorsements is another great tactic used, e.g. Campaigns often employ paid performers who are popular and people love and trust. We even label these people today just as they really are, Social Media Influencers. They are SO powerful.
Beyonce, took $50 million to flog sugar-loaded Pepsi, which hurts the health of the very people she insists she cares so much about. 50-Cent took $80 million from Reebok and LeBron James and David Beckham took $90 million and $160 million respectively from Nike to convince people to spend $100 to $200 on brand-name sneakers when you can be as good an athlete with no-name athletic shoes from Wal-Mart or Target for under $20. Thus, the vulnerable, disproportionately the poor, indirectly are paying the stars millions and add to corporate coffers to get products that are little better and maybe worse than products that don't incorporate a fortune in marketing dollars into their price. Cigarettes are the most heavily advertised product in the U.S. The tobacco companies spend $11 million a day to try to get people to smoke cigarettes. And soon, Big Tobacco will likely unleash their marketing manipulations to get more people to smoke pot.
There are ads in airports and on aeroplane food trays; over highways and on the airways. There are ads in hospitals, grocery stores and sports stadiums. They adorn walls in video games, they are splashed across cinema screens and voyeuristically gawk at us in public restrooms. Not even our schools or the bottom of pools are safe from calls to action. H.G. Wells, had such an aversion to advertising that he once passionately proclaimed, "Advertising is legalised lying!"
The real problem here is that advertising is tied to the totally unethical model of modern capitalism. Nothing is sacred, lying is totally accepted, and even innocent children are targeted at a young age to breed a lifetime of commitment to a brand and their products. Interestingly, the best things need NO advertising, and so its usually only the things that are inferior or not needed that are advertised in the first place. That is worth remembering and probably why we rarely see ads for products that really shine. Tesla for example has NO advertising budget or marketing budget. They run no ads, they don't need to because their product is superior and of high quality.
As i said in the beginning of this post, advertising is about more than just selling us things, and today that is more the case than ever before. We are going to have to be very careful to not get brainwashed into doing things we don't want to or trusting people we really should not trust. Social media has changed the landscape and scope for advertising in ways that even step toward conspiracy. The effects of advertising with no ethics are far reaching, and disturbing. My personal worst aspect of this is self image. Things have gotten so bad now that our phones and camera automatically smooth our skin and make us look 'better' according to the version of beauty dictated to us by mass media and advertising. This is a crime, and is responsible for SO much emotional trauma and pain that is almost unfathomable. This is just the start of that rabbit hole.
Today it seems there is no attempt to address this issue, and indeed it drives our economies and even the Internet. It is too powerful, and since our entire world has embraced the economy and profit as sacred i don't see it changing anytime soon. So folks, keep your eyes CLOSED (not open!) and ears shut! It is not possible to get through a day without seeing adverts in one form or another unless you literally sit in a corner sleeping, and even then your dreams are probably influenced by them! They have changed us from our core!
I wait with baited breath for the day that money ceases to exist as we know it. That is the ONLY way things will change and we can reclaim our world and our minds. One day i believe this will happen, and we will be free from the truly evil desires of predatory capitalism. IT cares about nothing but profits, it is dangerous and yet totally ubiquitous. Bring on the revolution!!!
SOURCES:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/company/corporate-trends/marketing-aimed-at-children-is-a-social-evil/articleshow/2055706.cms?from=mdr
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-do-life/201701/marketing-is-evil
https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/12/201322.html
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/advertising-influence-people-57377.html
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-some-people-think-marketing-is-evil
https://sparktoro.com/blog/the-marketing-is-evil-problem/
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