[petercooper]

I looked at the ads on Ars briefly, both animated Flash ads, one for razor blades and the other I couldn't even tell what it was selling. I admit to being very emotional about this

!?? Is this April 1st or will you next claim that the letters "g" and "x" upset you too? What about the number 283?

[briancarper]

I am emotional about advertising in general, not those ads in particular. I am not frothing at the mouth over a single ad, no.

Are you OK with a bunch of marketing guys sitting in an office thinking "How can we manipulate people's sex drives to maximize profit this week?" Razor commercials: Hunky guy shaves; heavily-airbrushed, scantily-clad woman looks on longingly. Implication: Buy our razors, get laid. Flashing lights and "power words". Repeat over and over until you can't forget it. What's the difference between commercials and any other form of propaganda? Commercials are more mundane, but use the same principles.

Sorry, but I feel mildly insulted by this. I feel like I'm being treated like an animal. After the ten thousandth attempt to have such a thing drilled into my brain, I start to become annoyed. I'm amazed so many people happily imbibe and internalize these things without any complaint.

[jwhite]

I agree with your sentiments about advertising. I haven't had a TV in my house for five years, mainly for that reason. When I go to my parents' house and watch TV ads there, I find them ridiculous and wonder how anyone could take them seriously. Then I realize that most people watching them don't even notice, so their brains must be somehow conditioned by watching them. That's the part that disturbs me the most.

I don't agree with everything in your blog post, though it was an interesting read, thank you. Specifically, I don't run an adblocker, but for most sites I don't seem to even notice the ads. I'm not sure if that's because I'm conditioned to see them as normal, or because I'm just not seeing them. I would hazard a guess that their impact is much less than TV ads though.

Regardless, I do sympathize with people who run websites that offer useful information or services, but don't have a viable revenue model that doesn't involve ads. I get a lot of value from these sorts of sites (for instance, the sites of open source software projects), but there are too many of them for me to want to pay a subscription to all of them. (Perhaps there's an opportunity there?) However, most of these sites that I get the most value out of are not about screwing money out of people, just paying for their hosting costs.

To compare this with TV, I generally don't want what's on TV, even if I can download it for free, but I do want the content on many of the sites supported by advertising. For the moment, I see it as a fair trade.

EDIT: Clarify last sentence of third paragraph.

[petercooper]

Are you OK with a bunch of marketing guys sitting in an office thinking "How can we manipulate people's sex drives to maximize profit this week?" Razor commercials: Hunky guy shaves; heavily-airbrushed, scantily-clad woman looks on longingly. Implication: Buy our razors, get laid. Flashing lights and "power words". Repeat over and over until you can't forget it. What's the difference between commercials and any other form of propaganda? Commercials are more mundane, but use the same principles.

Totally fine with it. As long as I have the choice to ignore and not respond to something, it don't annoy me. It only annoys me if I have no choice.

There are some people who get upset and write letters to the TV company when a swear word or some blasphemy is uttered or a nipple shown.. sane people turn off the TV if they don't like it and do something else for a while.

Adverts are fine by me because I have a degree of free will to be influenced by them to the point of my choosing. Sure, a Coke ad in the middle of winter can make me feel nostalgic and want to grab a Coke. But I like Coke, so that's fine by me. This isn't upsetting.

Propaganda is everywhere and advertising is only a small part of it. Almost every word out of a person in power has a bias, a motivation, or an ulterior motive. Even regular people in our lives don't say what they really want to say. When one's wife sweet-talks them to get something she wants, that's propaganda. When one gives their wife a compliment but has sex on the brain, that's propaganda. This stuff isn't always bad - it's how life works and it won't go away.

I feel like I'm being treated like an animal.

You are. I am. We all are. And it's awesome to feel these rushes of emotions because it means we're unpredictable, unique, and alive.

[doron]

I share this sentiment completely, I like to have the freedom of being treated like an animal when I choose so alone.

[andywood]

FWIW, I share these sentiments 100%, and thought your post was great.