Plague Journal, Desire
Advertising
is one of the cultural mediums
that has the most sanctioned lying.
Keeping people in a constant state of lack,
in perpetual desire,
strengthens
the marketplace economy.
Lovelessness is a boon to consumerism.
And lies strengthen the world
of predatory advertising.
— Excerpt, All about Love, New Visions by bell hooks p. 47
I do not believe that we live a “better life” than did past generations who were deprived of video media. Perhaps that assumption is part and parcel of the fabric of lies deriving primarily from television. From the cradle to the grave it’s as if a needle is inserted into our vein, in this case into the mind. We absorb a world depicted by a medium implacably conceived for profit. Our minds become a screen, upon which, desire is projected by the admen.
Perhaps you think this proposition is too strange, too outlandish to be true?
Feeling less “manly?” This testosterone-laced video offers a solution to your problem: Trail Boss, two inch lift, rancho shocks, dual exhaust, … ready to off-road. And not unrelated is what it would mean to the natural environment to have these tearing up the landscape in a frenzy of off-roading expression of manhood. What are the social and psychological costs of such individualism?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoYnDBKkuxs
This one is more subtle. The video hooks into our addiction to speed, our wanting, our needing. Having a bit of identity crisis, perhaps what you’ve heard called, a mid-life crisis? You “need” a Ford truck.
2 thoughts on “Plague Journal, Desire”
And yet — now imagine NO advertising in any medium. When you want a sofa, dentist, new job, fancy restaurant meal, how do you find out how to secure that?
Who could possibly disagree? Advertising at a rudimentary level is a story about something that is offered. That is as old as barter exchange. Yet, electronic media, especially video offers unparalleled power of persuasion, without the presence of a story teller, or the ability to immediately examine the goods. If selling as many units as possible is all that you care about, — electronic media is a capitalists and a propagandists dream.