Advertising works really well. You're a slave to the rich who can afford it.

Deprogram yourself! Every time you see an ad, go see another ad that counteracts it.

Watch a Coke commercial? Watch some close-ups of gum disease. Now you won't want to waste money on soda.

Watch a car commercial? Watch a poor obese man drive that car. Now you won't want to waste money on an overpriced car.

Watch a political ad? Watch one of Hitler's speeches. Now you won't want to waste a vote on a pandering asshole.

This only works if the anti-ads you watch are as good or better than the ads you saw. The anti-ad must speak to your hindbrain. Watching Noam Chomsky ain't gonna get Trump out of your head.

If only it were possible to avoid all advertising. As it is, I have to play the game, or I'll get eaten by people who pretend they're also not playing.

Anti-ads could fix school too, by giving math and subtle literature a glamour befitting their power.
-- sninctown, Nov 22 2015

https://www.adbusters.org/ [pocmloc, Nov 23 2015]

I'd like to buy the world a Coke, and keep it company. It's the REAL Thing.

( Swaying in time to the music. )

-----

So start a website like "Hot or Not" was.

Submit two links - one pro commercial one con commercial. Then ask the crowd to vote on which pairs are most evenly yoked or equivalent in strength.

Once you get a reputation for fairness and even-handedness, develop something like the pg m x ratings for movies. Only certain pairs allowed on Saturday morning TV.
-- popbottle, Nov 22 2015


What if you try a product and learn weather or not it is good or bad and that would fix the problem?
-- travbm, Nov 23 2015


//Advertising works really well. You're a slave to the rich who can afford it.//

Not really. Two close relatives of mine spent much of their working lives in the industry, so I have something approaching an inside view of this. Advertising works a bit, for certain limited objectives. It doesn't do nothing (at least, it doesn't *usually* do nothing, though epic fails still occur sometimes), but it doesn't enslave anyone. Except in its dreams.

There are two groups who regularly exaggerate the power of advertising. One is the advertisers themselves. The other is sad Marxists who are desperate for a reason why most people don't agree with them. I have some sympathy for the sad Marxists, but I think in this case they have got the wrong scapegoat.
-- pertinax, Nov 24 2015


I'm wondering - who produces really good ads for gum disease?
-- lurch, Nov 24 2015


It so happens that I recently read an excellent short story on this topic by a Bulgarian named Alexander Shpatov. In the story, Bulgarians are hired as extras for scenes they somehow never see, and it turns out that the director is filming anti-commercials, which he sells to companies as a form of blackmail.
-- 4and20, Nov 24 2015



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