| 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. |