Agreed.
If something is worth buying, it doesn’t need advertising. That is not to say no information is needed about products/services and where to find them, I’m talking about pushing a product/service and manipulation/persuasion.
“Leave ppl the fuck be”.
Can something crafty and stealthy be violent? I’m not sure, but it most certainly feels violating and forced. What was that about negative liberty? I guess it doesn’t apply to mind control.
Even if a product/service is not crap, as soon as it is advertised it suddenly feels like crap to me. And so does the rest of the world of people when they go and buy it. I really don’t want to hate people, and I really don’t want to find material things detestable. Advertising just makes me react this way.
I have a real problem with advertising.
A survival tip I find useful is to mute ones with sound. Then I can look away and don’t feel quite so violated (but I still feel extremely disgusted).
But I know why it’s done: it stretches demand beyond its natural balance, to encourage the maximum possible trade, which is the lifeblood of “growth”. Growth being the rate of increase in profits netted by an economy, which will be positive anyway if left alone - but greed demands cheating and then we all suffer when we have to come back down to reality during each bust that follows every illusory boom.
Advertising is just another thing that makes us all suffer all the more for each recession.
Advertising is a disease that sickens the soul.
I think we all are.