the thing with adverts, sil, is that they’re incredibly expensive, so companies aren’t going to spend their money to extend commercial air time to give you all the info on the product during the commercial. it’s the consumer’s responsibility to research the product.
but you’re spot on about the more concealed nature of advertisement, especially it’s subliminal content. i just heard a car dealership radio commercial - well i’ve heard it several times. the name of the dealer is ‘hendrick’, and at the very end of the commercial, the name is said. but it isn’t just any ol’ body or any ol’ voice that says it; it’s the voice of a young female who says ‘hendrick’ the same way she might say ‘oh it’s so good’ when getting fucked. there’s a science to everything about this… the tone, pitch, volume, all of it. basically what the advert producers are doing is trying to trigger and stimulate the most base of the subconscious reward responses; i just heard a girl sound like she’s orgasming… now i’m totally interested in buying a car from them (if you’re a guy). i just heard a sexy girl’s voice… and i want to be sexy like her… now i’m totally interested i buying a car from them (if you’re a gal).
it’s not rocket science to observe how capitalism thrives on this kind of underhanded manipulation…and it’s something it has forced itself to do in order to be successfully competitive in the market. make you interested in as little time possible, even if that involves forms of persuasion that are hidden underneath an otherwise banal surface. and what is happening as a kind of side-effect is that people sense the play of this subterfuge, and it conditions their social behavior such that they almost become commercials themselves in selling themselves publically. they unconsciously model their behavior off of the adverts, TV shows, music videos, and all other kinds of media that are structured to solicit interests subliminally. i was reading a book on post-structuralism earlier and the author had made the comment that people in capitalist/consumerism are like ‘walking billboards’ with little to no depth. everything is a performance… everyone is an autonomous copy… even the image of non-conformity becomes a conformity that is purchased. originality, today, is almost impossible… or requiring such a radical break from normality that you’d almost be classed a sociopath to do so.
and all this bullshit is the product of commodity fetishism… attributing ‘metaphysical niceties’ (marx) to otherwise mundane goods that are portrayed through capitalst advertisement to possess almost magical properties. when you buy a shampoo, you ain’t just buying some soap to clean your hair. you’re buying a way of life, a complete persona. just look at the confident bounce in the step and how everyone smiles when you walk by. you’re a go-getter, someone who demands respect and is admired by everyone in both the workplace and at home. you could even do a joint commercial with chili’s bar and grill. first you’d wash your hair with pantene, then you’d join your friends at chili’s where everyone would sit at the table and NEVER STOP LAUGHING AND SMILING because they’re having such a wonderful time. the food is great and the conversation even better.
but it’s never really like that, is it? see what i mean; advertisement exaggerates reality to a point where it’s almost surreal… and that’s what people want. they want to be that chick walking down the sidewalk with the bouncing hair… they want to be in that group of impossibly happy people at the table pulling pieces of pizza from the pie as the long strings of cheese stretch like they never really do in reality.
the whole thing is a joke, man. it’s one of the 673 lies that cannot exist without capitalism. lies which taken individually never amount to any real danger, but when combined with all the others, completely poison the mind and soul of man. the genius in it is that it works so subtly… so slowly, so that one never notices the disease they’ve gotten from it.
capitalism is a monopoly on the fantasies of man, a systematic brainwashing and hypnotism that creates mindless hedonistic zombies ready and waiting to buy whatever they’re told to.