Advertising rant

Sep 23, 2003 12:12

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect."- Mark Twain ( Read more... )

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True holdenisdead September 26 2003, 13:18:20 UTC
The only problem is, most people in this society LIKE capitalism. Its not that they truly understand it in all its @#@EVILNESS$#@#, but theyve been conditioned to like it anyway. They dont mind the 50 000 homeless people in Toronto. They dont seem to care, as long as THEYRE ok. Greed, to an extent. Lets face it, the successful people are the ones with most of the say in this world. And why would they want to compromise their corporate/political(I think theyre the same thing sometimes) strength and wealth so that poor people could live comfortably? I think the closest thing to a utopia that we will ever find is a capitalist state with socialized programs found within. Kind of like Canada, or maybe like Sweden, but with more funding put towards health care and shit that matters.

They think democracy is a wonderful thing where everyone has a say. There are problems with this though, first off, the majority of the public is STUPID. Thats one of the reasons Bush is in power now, that and basically buying the election, but thats another story.

So you have all these people, who succumb to advertising and believe it. "Oh, I need this new thing to put on my face or else I wont be attractive and wont attract a rich husband who will probably cheat on me anyway!?"

They feed off of our insecurities, just look at all the anorexic people out there.

Something Ive thought up lately is the saying "They dont make them like they used to" actually has a reason for existing. They DONT make things very well anymore, so we can "break" them, and purchase more overpriced goodies!

Sometimes I try to imagine a world without ads, but I cant.

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mr_manifesto September 26 2003, 16:29:14 UTC
"They don't make them like they used to" actually has a reason for existing. They DON'T make things very well anymore, so we can "break" them, and purchase more overpriced goodies!"

Yes this is a well known ploy of corporations. The best example is stereo equipment. If you bought stereo equipment in the 60s, 70s or very early 80s you would find that most of it is still functional today. However sometime in the 80s corporations started designing products that would purposefully cease to work after 5-10 years. They came to the conclusion that if they didn't do such a thing they couldn't get you to buy more. Why would anyone buy new stereo equipment every few years?

The only question that they might have had was brand loyalty, i.e. why would you buy Sony again after the Sony you just bought quit working on you? But the answer is simple, in this nasty corporate world we've created there is no alternative. The other brands are all corporations that engage in the same practices. So even if you feel burned by one corporation in a few years you'll be a potential customer once again when your newer system fails.

But this begs one question... what came first the chicken or the egg? Either they started to do this regardless if other corporations did or once they saw that others products lasted less time they purposely engineered their stuff to be faulty. I think we can rule out collusion, only the extremely paranoid would go so far as to find conspiracy theories here...

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bria September 26 2003, 18:33:31 UTC
Everybody wants to cut costs. If you don't do it first, you end up with your high quality stereo on the shelf, next to one that looks exactly the same, from a brand that everyone remembers being good in the past, but that costs a hundred bucks less, AND makes a much bigger profit... How do you compete?

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holdenisdead September 26 2003, 19:34:51 UTC
I wont deny that Im way too paranoid.

But I still dont like it.

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bria September 26 2003, 20:54:08 UTC
I get the impression that the collusion is mostly just a part of "getting things done," and "the way things work." I don't know how often evil people get together on a large scale and manipulate things that way, though I would expect that they would with some regularity depending on their sphere of power.

I also don't think that specific conspiracy theories are necessary in every instance, when people's hearts are often enough bent towards perpetuating evil, and at least towards increasing one's own bank account at every opportunity (and sometimes at any cost).

So what's the difference, really, besides a few surface details (like size)?

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