Back when people made good livings living good lives, there was a man with a very special talent. He could make money out of hot air! Honestly! (Well, maybe not completely honestly, but certainly not a total scoundrel.) He went by the moniker P.T.Barnum, and he was a consummate showman. Or so I hear. I don't quite go back that far.
How did ol' PT make money out of hot air? He talked people out of it. He promised them marvels never before seen! Surprises never before spinetingled! He begged, he cajoled, he made assurances and pledges of wonderments and fabulosities to boggle the mind.
He was an ad man.
Sure, he was lots of other things, but he knew the power of advertising. Who would have ever heard of the Fiji Mermaid without posters, handbills and other ads? Here is how PT Barnum sold...PT Barnum.
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All images lifted from Google Images search PT Barnum poster.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is an ad man. He knows the power of the word in the public eye and ear. He made his daily bread by throwing words at people...who threw lots of money back. He was just selling himself and his imagination, however...while taking full advantage of ANYTHING that would grab that most fleeting of all rewards - the attention of the public.
Today, we are plagued by that most pernicious of all vermin...advertising agencies and the dim-witted clients to which they pitch the most obnoxious trash ever filmed by upright bipedal humanoids...and it gets aired. Absolutely mind fucking what gets shown on television - and absorbed by the vast majority of sheeple out there who simply smile, nod vacantly and reach into the Pringle's can yet again, as their intellect is raped, pillaged, filleted, laid out in the sun to desiccate, then plumped back up with instafilltrashy products that no sane person could EVER need or want - or have the foggiest idea what to do with... and all this in the name of entertainment.
Great Caesar's Ghost. What crap those people spew forth, and how docilely the viewing public laps it up. It's SCARY how little outrage this garbage generates. I see Internet outrage all the time - some justified, some bullshit - but this stuff is insidious. The very lack of reaction is all too horrifyingly reminiscent of those scary movies where the bad guys snuck in under cover of night and replaced the real people with robots, or pods, or whatever. I just cannot believe that I am the only one who gets incensed over this shit. Where are all the ad haters?
Ah. Gone from television. I have noted that trend with great satisfaction and approval. Nielsen raters are worried about the rising percentage of households reporting ZERO TV's. Those that have known me for a while know just how absolutely ECSTATIC I was when I read that. I still want to find that junior college professor who excoriated my paper about the evils of television and rub his nose in the simple truth that everything that I said could happen - did. People cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality on television -and I said that the distinction would be impossible by the year 2010. Came sooner than that apparently. Ask anyone who can attempt to spell Kardashcan with one K. Reality? Fantasy?
So, tell me, why is a lifelong TV hater writing a blog about advertising evils? Well...number one...advertising evils.
Number two. I HATE ADS. I love football. In this country, one must accept ads with one's football. Even if one is paying for cable service - which completely frosts my ass and befuddles my brain. WHY does everyone agree to pay for the service AND sit complacently through the ads that we have always been told were necessary to pay for the programming? Who is bullshitting whom, here exactly? Either my monthly bill to the cable company pays the channels that I receive for their programming - or the channels that I receive charge companies money to run ad on those channels that I receive and pay for...which means all those cable companies are being paid by me AND by those advertisers, and guess what! FUCK YOU CABLE COMPANIES!
If I MUST sit through ads, I will bloody sit through the free ones on the networks. I walked out of a movie the first time they tried to make me pay for a seat and sit through an ad. Hell, no. Not on my dime. I didn't mind the cute little intermission/concession ads, or even the public service ones. But when I pay 8.50 for a movie and you try to sell me a car...I want, and demanded, and got, my money back. I will only allow advertisers to fuck my mind for free. I will not pay them for the privilege.
So, an ad blog about shitty ads. This will probably only be updated once a week or so, as that is all the time that I can stand watching TV. However, I will try to be entertaining as I attempt to unrape you. Can't promise to be gentle, however. Ready to meet the egress?
See ya next time....
egress stage left
