It's time to start our own political action committee. We won't actually give money to candidates since they'll use it for their own nefarious purposes. But we'll bitch real loud, send form letters to representatives, and litigate like a mother fucker a la the RIAA.
I'm am sick and tired of commercials, advertising, and the insidious things that go along with them. I'm willing to put up some advertisements. They can be entertaining and, in extremely rare cases, informative. But I'm done. Fuck these people and the the cheap uninspired garbage they hawk. You can't get ripped abs working out 30 minutes a day. No matter how fortified your ice cream is, it's still fucking ice cream. And you can't clean with the power of oxygen. If you could, there would be no need for washing in the first place since we're surrounded by....drum roll please...OXYGEN!
Advertisements are pervasive. They're on tv, radio, magazines, newspapers, every internet page. There are advertisements for products whenever you call a company with a complaint about their other products. We have ads in schools, on clothes, and on sidewalks. There are ads on the fucking stripes between spaces in parking lots. Victoria's Secret should just start advertising on titties. And now here are in-game advertisements for computer and video games. I have to sit through 20 minutes of commercials at the movies. Up next are ads in every pdf document you view. As I type, search engines are compiling data on users to send targeted advertisements and giving that data to other businesses ("their affiliates") for advertising and data mining purposes. TV shows are now smashing the credits into the top 1/3 of the screen so they can run ads in the bottom 2/3. They've lopped nearly 3 minutes off of perfectly good shows to run more commercials. Give me my 3 minutes back asshole! It's enough to make you puke. But if I did, I bet I'd receive an ad for some miracle carpet cleaner that will not only clean my vomit but also wash the car, the cat, and leave both with a pine-fresh scent.
Ad companies, movie studies, and tv networks are working hard to remove the DVR feature that allows you to skip commercials. This means, in effect, that you are LEGALLY OBLIGATED TO WATCH COMMERCIALS. It would be ILLEGAL to fast-forward through them. Of course, you can leave the room. But how many people are going to do that? Not many. And that's what these companies are banking on. Preying on the stupidity of the average fool.
For those of you that want to argue on "personal responsibility" grounds, let me just say I agree with the principle but not the application. It's true that if you don't buy, they may advertise less. But you can't ignore the fact that people are gullible, easily manipulated, and easily fooled. Study after study shows that people, ESPECIALLY CHILDREN, are heavily influenced by the images and messages they are pelted with from ads (see the well referenced summary report at the bottom of this link ). If you say it's all on the people who are being fooled, it's tantamount to blaming the poor for being poor while denying them opportunities for better jobs and better education.
Why are people not up in arms about this? These companies are forcing their ads into your home, your time, and your kids' brains. They're using your personal habits to sell more junk and very often don't tell you they're doing it. But remember: it's not spying because we don't call it that.
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