| Marketing. If you recognize my user name at all then you've heard me bang this drum a few times before, but marketing is among the top reasons Everything Sucks in modern society. Your attention is constantly being assaulted by people who want to sell you something. In order to sell you something, they have to convince you that you need it, but chances are you don't need it, so they exploit your insecurities. You're not manly enough, buy our pickup truck. You're not pretty enough, buy our makeup. You're not working hard enough, buy our productivity enhancement programme. You're not healthy enough, buy our fad diet. You're entitled to money because of a minor screw up, join our class action. Everything sucks because of that other political party, vote for us instead. We're encouraged to treat each other as competitors and seek the material above all, because that makes it easier for companies to sell us shit. We're encouraged to be entitled, because that makes us get angry when we don't get things, like the stuff they're trying to sell us. Carl's Junior: Fuck you, I'm eating. The side effect is we isolate ourselves, but that's just fine by them because they are selling us the junk we try to fill the hole in our lives with anyway. The message fucks us up on a personal level, and that radiates out to the sociological level. It forces us to be defensive with the systems we put in place to keep people connected (email, phone calls, the web, search results, etc.) because they will exploit any opportunity to hijack your attention. Is it any wonder we're wary of connecting with people too? |
We don't email with friends because our inboxes are overflowing with marketing so we don't use it to communicate anymore.
We don't answer phone calls because most of the time it's just marketing calls (or scams)
And so on.