I enjoyed watching Adam Ruins Everything. But it was a bit weird. It didn’t ruin everything. It’s just about how seemingly every American thing is a marketing “psyop”. I’m not an American so learning about how spending X amounts of salary on a specifically diamond engagement ring or something is a Diamond Industry (or something) marketing campaign didn’t really “ruin” it for me since I don’t have warm and fuzzy feelings around it. But I imagine that’s the same for many Americans.
There are many this-is-just-what-is-done “values” that were discussed like this. Not quite as on-the-nose as spend this ridiculous amount of your salary on specifically X ring.
I’m not singling out America here. I don’t think this shows that it is a uniquely American thing. It is just very convenient for me: I’m not part of the culture so I can watch a little from the outside. And America is a big country (we are told) so naturally there are pop-exposes like this. I do not expect the same amount of resources to be poured into my own corner of the world and all the “organic” things that we value. But that show helped me think about all the things closer to home that might be influencing me.
And since then, or before it, I’ve believed that all of society is a marketing gimmick. The asymmetry of mass media is too great in favor of Big Bad Things (governments, corporations).
What a weird feeling. To know (or believe) that you are a spoiled brat in terms of access to information, many conveniences and such (except my mortgage), and that it just comes at the small price of a Panopticon of constant brainwashing.
And so you go about your day. A Special Occassion on this and that day, which is just a marketing campaign to sell you gifts that you are obligated to buy on this Special Occassion. You know it. But you go along with it. Because what are you going to do? Complain at the nearest plaza to drones like you that also knows the truth but go along with it because it’s just the way things are done and anyway no one cares about your particular eight-page manifesto on how society is slightly broken?
As to the article, naive to the point of being suspect, even. This has been going on for let’s say a long time. But as usual the classic outlet is the Evil Corporation with stupid-arse names like Chaotic Good who has some hateable yuppie press release person who just says, Yes, the Internet is bot-filled and there is a demand and we fill it, in fact we are so proud of it. It’s just, hey these people are doing it, look, it’s these people right here.
But the reality is so insidious and rotten that TikTok Comments on Demand Inc. and Korean Executive-created K-pop is just a farcically shallow treatment of it.
There are many this-is-just-what-is-done “values” that were discussed like this. Not quite as on-the-nose as spend this ridiculous amount of your salary on specifically X ring.
I’m not singling out America here. I don’t think this shows that it is a uniquely American thing. It is just very convenient for me: I’m not part of the culture so I can watch a little from the outside. And America is a big country (we are told) so naturally there are pop-exposes like this. I do not expect the same amount of resources to be poured into my own corner of the world and all the “organic” things that we value. But that show helped me think about all the things closer to home that might be influencing me.
And since then, or before it, I’ve believed that all of society is a marketing gimmick. The asymmetry of mass media is too great in favor of Big Bad Things (governments, corporations).
What a weird feeling. To know (or believe) that you are a spoiled brat in terms of access to information, many conveniences and such (except my mortgage), and that it just comes at the small price of a Panopticon of constant brainwashing.
And so you go about your day. A Special Occassion on this and that day, which is just a marketing campaign to sell you gifts that you are obligated to buy on this Special Occassion. You know it. But you go along with it. Because what are you going to do? Complain at the nearest plaza to drones like you that also knows the truth but go along with it because it’s just the way things are done and anyway no one cares about your particular eight-page manifesto on how society is slightly broken?
As to the article, naive to the point of being suspect, even. This has been going on for let’s say a long time. But as usual the classic outlet is the Evil Corporation with stupid-arse names like Chaotic Good who has some hateable yuppie press release person who just says, Yes, the Internet is bot-filled and there is a demand and we fill it, in fact we are so proud of it. It’s just, hey these people are doing it, look, it’s these people right here.
But the reality is so insidious and rotten that TikTok Comments on Demand Inc. and Korean Executive-created K-pop is just a farcically shallow treatment of it.
Am I saying that TFA is a psyop?