Is it just me, or is advertising getting even more pernicious, lately?

[riverdeep]

I'm a professional advertising avoider. I've hated TV commercials since I was a teenager. I'm at the point where my tolerance is so low, if I go to someone's house where they actually don't change the channel during commercials(!), I feel anxious and agitated. Billboards- don't notice them. If I'm by myself, I wear earplugs with music or a podcast moving about so I don't hear the advertising kiosks stores have set up.

But even I have noticed the raging aggressiveness of advertising of late.

Exhibit A: TV shows are now advertising other TV shows in the area that used to tell what station you were watching (and before that it was blank!). Say you're watching, I don't know, 'Medium' (a network drama) and on the bottom right-hand portion of the screen it says 'BRAND NEW AMERICAN GLADIATORS TOMORROW!', with jiggling graphics and what-not, and then a ghost promo stays there for the whole show.

Exhibit B: Promotional pushes at check outs, everytime. My first encounter with this was Radio Shack back in the 90's. I just wanted to buy a cheap connector, but the guy was pushing cell phones. Bastard wouldn't take no for an answer and thought it was a fun game to come up with reasons why I had to buy a cell phone, and wouldn't ring me up until I 'heard him out'. While I haven't encountered anyone that boorish lately, these promos are practiced by every cashier I meet lately. At the grocery store, "Would you like to try our special today, Keebler Morsels, they're 30% off and delicious." (Said in a monotone voice by a cashier who hates the practice as much as I do). And practically everywhere else. Gas stations. Electronic Stores. Anywhere there's a chain, you'll probably get hit.

I realize this has been steadily increasing for a long time, but every once in a while, the frog notices the temperature seems to be getting hotter.

[Skittles]

1. always pushing us to get their CARDS too

WTF!!!!!!! NO I DON'T WANT A F***ING CARD. And have you noticed THIS at any checkouts: "Would you like to donatate a dollar to (insert charity here)." WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[depakid]

10. Safeway does that -and wouldn't it be interesting to see the auditing?

Not to mention, who they sell the "club card" databases to.

[ColbertWatcher]

2. And pervasive...

...speaking of the check-out line, since when did we need to have TV screens? And even those little rubber dividers have ads on them.

Oh, and if I answered every email promising to lengthen my penis by 3" it would be over 10 feet long by now.

The previous sentence was brought to you by Viagra. Viagra, even though Elvis is dead, he would have licensed one of his songs to be used in commercial advertising.

The previous snark was brought to you by The Colbert Report, which is brought to you by Spicy Sweet Chili-flavored Doritos.

[Earth_First]

4. Your post has me sold!

:drives to store for Spicy Sweet Chili-flavored Doritos:

[ColbertWatcher]

7. I will add you to my newsletter email list. n/t

[DJ13]

8. I would respond, but I have to roll up my penis, sorry

:rofl:

[riverdeep]

11. I forgot about the plastic or rubber dividers!

Anywhere there is the potential for one of your senses to be assaulted, some ad schmuck has already thought of the way. Even on the floor of supermarkets. Look down in the cereal isle, and there's Cap'n Crunch.

And I know I couldn't get through this thread without posting the requisite Bill Hicks:

"By the way, if anyone here is in advertising or marketing, kill yourself. No, this is not a joke: kill yourself . . . I know what the marketing people are thinking now too: 'Oh. He's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market.' Oh man, I am not doing that, you fucking evil scumbags."

edit: spelling- it not so good

[ColbertWatcher]

15. And I forgot about the ads on the floor! n/t

[Retrograde]

35. On the floor?

I must be shopping at the wrong places - the grocery stores I usually go to haven't had ads on the floor. Or I'm totally oblivious to them.

OTOH, one of the stores usually has flyers for the free exhibits at the local university art center, which I do take.

And it's not just the US. I was in Edinburgh recently, where the local bus tickets have MacDonald's discount coupons on the back.

[riverdeep]

58. They look like this.

Well, the right-hand portion of the image, anyway. The left part is visualizing how floor ads become an integrative strategy of advertising, from TV, to magazines, to in-store displays, to the floor you're walking on.

From this site-

"FLOORads are "billboards on the floor" that project the full richness of your ad campaign in-store. Unavoidable against uncluttered floors, FLOORads literally stop shoppers in their tracks..."

"Use Emotion, not Price, To Close the Sale."

http://www.floorgraphics.com/site/1_solution.html

I'm thinking if you're getting handed flyers for a free art exhibit, consider yourself lucky.

[ColbertWatcher]

59. Nice picture, but odd product to choose as an example...

...as if people wouldn't know to buy milk unless it was on the floor!

LOL

[Skittles]

12. ColbertWatcher has been brought to you by Skittles

who is fixing to KICK COLBERTWATCHER'S ASS :7

[ColbertWatcher]

14. Thank you. n/t

[Coexist]

42. lol!

[hatrack]

46. My new favorite - ads painted in (or glued to) parking spaces

You see, there's just enough space to get the message out.

Where does it stop? Where?

[KoKo]

3. I have to give this post a BIG RECOMMEND...because YES..and it's OUTTA CONTROL...

Even here on DU or many Website linked...the ADS now OVERPOWER THE TEXT on Websites and TEE VEE! OMG...it's a CROSSPROMOTIONAL WEB...of Advertising that it disgusting to the sensibilities..of some.

[Rosemary2205]

5. I think it probably used to be worse.

Though it's getting back to that way again because so many people are spending less (they make less). Instead of so many commercial breaks we'll hear Denny Crain ask for a "Sam Adams Ruby Red" or some such. == Like Colbert chowing down on Ben & Jerry's.

An elderly uncle told me all the news at the time talked about how "The Price is right" was actually intended to be one giant infomercial to get Americans to think about all the newest gadgets and appliances, how much they might cost, and be so lustful for one themselves that they were willing to buy "pay by the week".

My great grandma thought oats were for animals. My grandma bought bulk oats out of a barrel into a brown paper sack as a treat for the kids. My mother bought prepackaged brand name QUAKER OATS. I buy "new and improved" store brand oats in little 1 serving flavored baggies.

They've already convinced us to be consumers - I expect the "convincing" part was probably more agressive than the current version of "keep the fire stoked". I think it's currently getting worse that it was because the spending is down and they think they need to fire us up again.

Just a hunch of course.

[riverdeep]

16. I think reaching us as kids is the key.

Let's face it, it's not that hard to foster materialism in kids. Kids like the shiny, new, flashy, and peer group-approved stuff so automatically, it's almost scary. Like they came ready-made to consumerism. I suspect kids are marketed to more heavily now than ever before- and it's seamless. It appears in lunchrooms, and classrooms, in 'educational' programming and on the playground, in the mall, and of course, on TV.

So do you want to be 'a bad mommy or daddy' in the kids eyes 'cause you denied them that latest piece of crap from China that EVERYONE has to have? Or just suck it up and hope they grow out of it?

[Arctic Dave]

6. You can't get away from it.

When I fly Alaska Air they try to hawk their credit card or when I buy gas they have the recorded voice telling you what (sugary garbage) is on sale inside. I am glad they banned billboards in Alaska.

[stellanoir]

9. I've gone in and out of watching the tube for years.

What weirded me out was when I was younger, they would only promote over the counter drugs, like pepto bismol and aspirin and such.

Then I stopped watching the tube for a whole lot of years.

Then what to my wondering eyes should appear but all sorts of pharmaceutical companies pushing their over priced crap.

They take our tax payers' money for R & D, then spend exorbitant amounts of dough encouraging hypochondria. . ."ask your doctor. . . followed by a litany of side effects"

In the old days, a person would have a problem and consult their doctor. Not have it suggested subliminally by over priced advertisements.

It's abhorrent and borderline criminal.

[Stinky The Clown]

13. Radio Shack

Back when they used to ask for your name for every stupid purchase, i took to answering them thusly:

"Can I have your name?"

Showing a ten or a twenty, I'd answer "Cash"

"What's you address, Mr Cash?"

"Someplace where I won't have to give my name and address to buy from Radio Shack anymore."

"You're change is $7.12, Mr. Cash. Have a GREAT day!"

[Berry Cool]

17. It's definitely not just you.

The little blasty ads at the bottom of the screen for another show when you're watching TV, the way the closing credits zip by in 1-point unreadable type while you're blasted with a huge noisy ad for the next show, the store clerks asking you if you want to to buy extra things/get a store card/donate to a charity, the ads on the floor, the product placements, all that crap...

It all reminds me of a little snippet of the otherwise uneven Tom Cruise movie Minority Report, set about 50 years in the future, in which his character is trying to escape from bad guys through a mall, and when he runs by a clothing store, a holographic store-marketing image pops up, asking him if he wants to buy more of the same kind of pants he bought the last time he shopped there (and the pants are described).

[Kat45]

22. I think of that scene from the movie every so often because

the way things have been going, I figure it won't be long before that is actually happening.

[riverdeep]

26. The future?

The future is now. RFID baby. It's everywhere you want to be.

It all starts innocently enough, almost a game, like these things usually do in our culture. Last year, Mini Cooper owners got a chance to be RFID guinea pigs:

If there was ever a slick way to get folks to willingly carry around an RFID tag, MINI USA has it all wrapped up. Catering to every person's egotistical side, MINI has begun a pilot advertising campaign in Chicago, New York, Miami, and San Francisco, which gives select Cooper owners the chance to get an RFID keyfob in the mail, and moreover, a reason to consistently drive under MINI billboards.

The billboards then display a message of the 'select' owners' choosing.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/13/mini-usa-rolls-out-rfid-activated-billboards/


RFID isn't just a boon to advertisers, of course. London, a city you wouldn't expect to be on the privacy erosion bandwagon, is very happily cavorting on it. Cameras everywhere, and now RFID:

"People might think maybe it's a good thing. Maybe it will make me safer," Borriello said. But he added, "You can see this inching forward until we're tracking people wherever they go."

That might sound far-fetched, but it's going on in other parts of the world. Last year, the number of police requests for information from London's RFID-based transit card rose from four per month to 100, Borriello said. Police use the data in criminal cases.

And what of the total totalitarians?

In southern China, the government is installing RFID readers throughout the city of Shenzhen to track movements of citizens, and U.S. companies are helping deploy the technology, The New York Times has reported. Chips in national ID cards contain not just a number, but a person's work history, education, religion, ethnicity, police record and reproductive history.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2004316708_rfid31.html

We're in a perfect storm of citizens giving away all sorts of freedoms for safety (9/11 changed everything), an already malleable consuming public used to giving out private info, and corporations and governments that know exactly which buttons to push.

Oh, and while I've got my tinfoil hat on, it may be useful here, in reducing (some)* RFID transmissions.

The aluminum foil did, however, help with preventing the card from transmitting. Without the aluminum foil, my card was detected by the reader at a distance of about a foot and a half. With the aluminum foil, the card was not detected until it was about two inches away.

This does provide evidence that aluminum foil can be used to substantially hinder RFID, but the important note that I wish to make here is that the apparent consensus online about aluminum foil actually blocking RFID should not be believed.

http://www.omniscienceisbliss.org/rfid.html

For now...I'm sure the interested parties are trying to improve on this 'defect'.

*passive, high-frequency RFIDS can have transmissions reduced this way. Low-frequency ones are harder, and active (battery-powered) are harder still.

[izquierdista]

18. How to shut it down cold

Tell them you have no money. Come in with exact change for your purchase, preferably ending up counting out a crapload of pennies. Pull your pockets inside out, smile and ask if they are giving it away free.

[Pisces]

19. People use TIVO and DVR now, they skip the commercials which makes advertiser

crazy. They have to come up with new ways to get your attention. I never watch regular tv on real time. I record and then zoom through the commercials. 1 hr. program is now a 40 min. show.

[RufusTFirefly]

20. Step 1: Kill Your Television

(This advice is brought to you by Sears -- where America shops.)

P.S. If you think the relative bowling skills of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have any relevance whatsoever, you are already toast. Stick a fork in yourself.

[Lorien]

21. Or use it just to watch DVDs from the library

it'll save your sanity AND your wallet!

[RufusTFirefly]

23. Indeed. My TV is literally "in the closet"

I typically pull it out (until 2009 when it will be rendered useless) for the Oscars and occasionally for the World Series.

I watch movies on my computer, and because I know that beyond a certain point you "objectify" the image, the size of my screen is pretty unimportant. That said, I wouldn't watch "Lawrence of Arabia" on my computer. Luckily, I live less than two miles away from a theater that shows things like "Lawrence." I am still a big fan of actually going to films (as opposed to "movies") instead of just watching them at home. As a result, I know almost nothing about Britney and Paris. In addition, I've never seen "American Idol," "Lost," or "Survivor." Oh, woe is me!

[Lorien]

30. I'm in a similar situation. My TV has no cable or rabbit ears

so it only gets one channel in (the CW) and not very well. I recently added a little flat screen TV in my studio that I use for reference (I'm an illustrator/ designer for Disney, so if I need to draw the Aristocats or Jack Sparrow I just pop in a DVD and hit "pause". Saves time digging through the massive library of model sheets). The new TV has an internal digital tuner, so it gets all kinds of stations. I tried watching a few shows on it and just couldn't stand them; the shows were boring and poorly done, and the commercials were too long and obnoxious. I sometimes have the patience to listen to something on PBS while I work, but that's about it. Otherwise, I forget that I even get digital TV! And the only reason that I know that Brittany or Paris or Lindsey are in the news is because I see their photos on the front of all the tabloids while I wait in line at the supermarket...otherwise, I'm completely in the dark on pop culture issues, but I doubt if I'm missing anything!

[RufusTFirefly]

33. Corporate culture vs. popular culture

I think there's a tendency to conflate corporate culture (that is, tastes, interests, and fads handed down from above) with popular culture, which generally originates from below.

That said, one of the most interesting things about not watching TV is noticing from time to time how friends who do all simultaneously seem to fixate on particular topics and repeat particular memes without realizing that they've essentially been unwittingly programmed to do so. It's really sort of spooky. And it hits people of all levels of intelligence, many of whom are convinced that they are immune to the effect of these insidious messages.

[Lorien]

61. OMG! I've been through that too! Even my own father, who

lived for 27 years without a TV before getting one eight years ago, started going on about what a loser Anna Nicole Smith was after she died. I couldn't believe that my Ph.D anti-TV psychologist father knew so many details about that woman's life! I think that the first time that I *really* noticed the phenomenon was during the O.J. trial. It just seemed to go on and on, and people that I worked with were talking about it as if it directly effected THEM. Since then many topics have seized hold of the publics imagination in the very same manner. What's really creepy is when you find yourself out with a group of people for an entire evening, and none of them talk much about their own lives-they spend the evening talking about the lives of celebrities and other public figures that they aren't acquainted with, yet they speak of them with more passion and knowledge than they do about anything real that might be happening to them or a family member. It's an entirely vicarious way to exist. No wonder so many people feel disconnected from those around them!

[RufusTFirefly]

66. George Saunders calls it the "Braindead Megaphone"

The title essay of George Saunders' The Braindead Megaphone invites the reader to imagine a person at a party with a megaphone. Megaphone Guy might not have much to say, but he's got a megaphone and so he is heard, his utterances setting the agenda for the entire party, the party's collective intelligence (its crowd-like wisdom if you want to put it that way) determined by the intelligence of Megaphone Guy. Before long, it ruins the party because the other guests will stop being guests and become passive "reactors-to-the-Guy".

Discussed here

And Saunders agrees with you: He cites the O.J. trial as the watershed moment when Megaphone Guy really began to take over the public discourse.

[unblock]

24. it's all your fault, you do know that, don't you?

you could have been a good little consumer and responded hungrily to the conventional ads, BUUUT NOOOOOOOO!! you had to go and make it DIFFICULT for the advertising industry to reach your wallet. they had NO CHOICE but to do ever increasingly audacious crap to grab your attention, turn you upside down and shake out your loose change.

and *I* have to suffer along with you, all because you had to go and be some kind of "free thinker" or something.

next time just do us all a favor and buy whatever crap they're pushing before they put rotating ads inside corneal implants.

[riverdeep]

28. You just know some ad exec has dictated this into his recorder-

"Note to self: rotating ads inside the cornea!"

[unblock]

32. damn! damn damn!

here's a scary look at the latest technology.

http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20113/

[here_is_to_hope]

25. 24 posts and still no defintion of 'pernicious'..this thread is useless...

...to me

[riverdeep]

29. Pernicious-to paraflugenize

As in, "Has your girlfriend/boyfreind/stationary object/ been paraflugenizing you regularly? You seem chipper."

Also, "The last time my car went into paraflugenation, I had an accident, and they had to replace seven vertebrae."

Hope that clears it up.

[Dr. Strange]

31. With all due respect...

you really need to eschew obfuscation.

[here_is_to_hope]

38. LMAO!!! n/t

[RufusTFirefly]

37. If you have a computer, you have a dictionary

American Heritage Dictionary

[here_is_to_hope]

39. So you dont know either?

Ha! luv ya....:hi: :hi: :hi:

[slowry]

27. I also can't stomach any ads whatsoever.

What always calms me down, though, is a cool, refreshing can of Slurm.

[JitterbugPerfume]

34. when the commercial comes on hit MUTE

advertising only makes me want to go to Goodwill and/or the farmers market


mmmmmmm---slurm

[havocmom]

36. all that spying on ordinary Americans? You don't think it's about terrorists, do you?

It is marketing research. Keep track of sender and subject lines of the spam you get. Bettcha there are similar keywords that relate to searches and surfing you do online.

On TV they are sure trying to sell insurance and retirement accounts so they have your money to prop up Wall Street.

[The2ndWheel]

40. Why the Next Civil Rights Battle Will Be Over the Mind

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-04/st_thompson

Trolling down the street in Manhattan, I suddenly hear a woman's voice.

"Who's there? Who's there?" she whispers. I look around but can't figure out where it's coming from. It seems to emanate from inside my skull.

Was I going nuts? Nope. I had simply encountered a new advertising medium: hypersonic sound. It broadcasts audio in a focused beam, so that only a person standing directly in its path hears the message. In this case, the cable channel A&E was using the technology to promote a show about, naturally, the paranormal.

I'm a geek, so my first reaction was, "Cool!" But it also felt creepy.

[raccoon]

41. I wonder if PERNICIOUS is the word you really want?

per�ni�cious ��

ADJECTIVE:


Tending to cause death or serious injury; deadly: a pernicious virus.
Causing great harm; destructive: pernicious rumors.

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/pernicious

[riverdeep]

43. Sure.

pernicious

adjective
1. exceedingly harmful
2. working or spreading in a hidden and usually injurious way; "glaucoma is an insidious disease"; "a subtle poison"

–adjective
1. causing insidious harm or ruin; ruinous; injurious; hurtful: pernicious teachings; a pernicious lie.
2. deadly; fatal: a pernicious disease.
3. Obsolete. evil; wicked.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pernicious

[question everything]

44. I often keep TV on as a background, as during breakfast

reading the morning papers with one ear, or so, to weather and traffic.

But recently many of the commercials, and even regular programs, include clicking and "boinging" (or something) that make them hard to ignore.

The other day one of the morning shows had a story about true content of fat in packaged food. So whenever they mentioned a specific product, like Ritz cracker, there was a big "boing" sound.

There is a commercial for a pain medication, against arthritis, I think, which is very very long, a woman is talking, but there is a constant clicking in the background.

I suppose if they know that people are not watching, they can get our attention by annoying noises..

And, yes, I agree with the distracting graphics at the bottom of the screen. Even the network logo can be a distraction.

[NeedleCast]

45. Welcome to the TiVO generation

Advertisers can no longer rely on TV and raido to get their message out there. With the proliferation satellite radio and DVRs advertisers are looking for new avenuse for product placement. The pop-over ads on the TV are annoying for sure, especially if you're trying to watch something with sub-text at the bottom of the screen which is constantly being cut off.

The stuff at the super-markets doesn't bother me as much. I sometimes appreicate knowing what's on sale

[Horse with no Name]

47. Many corporations (especially the ones that use mystery shoppers)

actually use this plus-selling as a way to write up employees.
If they don't ask you...then they run the risk of losing their jobs or at least getting written up.

[riverdeep]

49. Yeah, I don't blame the employees too much.

Unless they're over the top like the Radio Shack guy. Most of them have this sort of sheepish, semi-humiliated approach to it, and I just say 'no thanks' and move on. Still annoying. It's the management/upper management that are the ones to take it out on. It's on my list of things to do. Unfortunately, it's a big list.

[backscatter712]

48. The pharmaceutical ads are the worst. But I love their parodies!

I always get a kick out of the parodies of pharmco ads.

Cheating Death with Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA for example... His "Prescott Pharmaceuticals" drugs always have the best side effects!

"Side effects may include autonomous nipple syndrome, genital migration and braintooth."

"Vaxxamax is guaranteed to grow healthy adult teeth. Mostly in your mouth."

"The tingling tells you it's working. The class-action lawsuit tells you it's Prescott."

Or there's this "commercial" for "Nozulla" ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o33tZfqF_M ) which is itself an E-Trade commercial...

"Nozulla may cause the following symptoms: itchy rashes, full body hair loss, projectile vomiting, gigantic eyeball, the condition known as 'hot dog fingers,' children born with the head of a golden retriever, seeing the dead, bone liquification, possession by the Prince of Darkness, tail growth, elderly pregnancy..."

[trof]

50. Bottom of your drop down tray, inside door of lav.

I think Carl Icahn came up with selling ad space there when he took over TWA.

[Mad_Dem_X]

51. Your Exhibit A - drives me up the wall!

I watch very little TV, but if I'm trying to concentrate on a show, I find it difficult when there are graphics (moving or otherwise) in the corner! Why, WHY to the networks do that shit?

[KansDem]

52. TeeVee viewing at an all-time high...

Nielsen: TV Viewing Grows

John Consoli

SEPTEMBER 21, 2006 -

<snip>
The total average time a household watched TV during the 2005-06 season was 8 hours and 14 minutes per day, a 3-minute increase from the 2004-05 season, and a record high. The average amount of TV watched by an individual viewer last season was 4 hours and 35 minutes per day, also up 3 minutes. During prime time (8-11 p.m. weekdays and Saturdays, and 7-11 p.m. Sundays), households watch TV an average 1 hour and 54 minutes per night, up 1 minute, while the average viewer watched 1 hour and 11 minutes, flat over 2004-05.

Mediaweek

[riverdeep]

57. The US now leads in hours spent TV watching.

U-S-A!! U-S-A!!



"America takes the couch-potato crown, with households goggling at the box for an eye-straining average of 8 hours and 11 minutes every day. The nearest rival, Turkey, only manages an average of five hours a day."

http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=7933596&story_id=9527126

Of course, I used to work with someone who said he watched 12 hours of TV on his days off. I was thinking to myself, "I don't think even prisoners watch that much TV." That would just make my brain liquefy.

[KansDem]

62. WOW!!! Thanks for the chart!

I'm not surprised Switzerland is so low. I spent several months there in 1983-84 and had dinner many, many times with a Swiss family. We would eat and then sit around the table for an hour or two and talk. The only time I saw anyone in this family watch TV was for the news programs.

DAMN!!! The US watches three hours more per day than second-place Turkey! :crazy:

[VotesForWomen]

53. what gets me is the blatant advertising contained *within* other programs. nt

[MindPilot]

54. And why oh why when I spend 80 bucks a month for cable,

do I still have to watch commercials?!

I tend more toward looking at advertising in general as an art form. What always amazes me though is how many just plain old cheap poorly written, poorly produced and just downright stupid ads there are.

Some make me actively avoid the particular product or service. Some OTOH are very, very good almost little mini-movies.

Those on-screen promos I think are there in large part as copy-protection, but they do bug the hell out of me. The worst is the latest thing Fox (network, not news) has where the ad begins as a patch of pixels on the screen and then swirls around to morph in the actual ad.

I have to admit it is extraordinarily effective albeit cruelly so. When I see those pixels, my first thought is "oh shit my four thousand dollar TV is tits-up!" The advertiser will likely never have me as open to suggestion as I am for those few milliseconds of panic.

[gulfcoastliberal]

55. My "fave" is commercials at movie theaters!

WTF?! Why spend $20 on tickets and popcorn when you have to endure 20+ minutes of adverts before the PREVIEWS even start!

[ColbertWatcher]

60. Great example! n/t

[Fox Mulder]

56. Thank the gods I've never had a problem like you did under Exhibit B.

Otherwise I'd quit going to the store.

[MedleyMisty]

63. We only use the TV for watching DVDs

and playing platform games, although we haven't done that in forever and have been playing computer games instead. There haven't been any good platform games in forever.

Anyway, sometimes we'll go out to eat at a place that has a TV and it's so jarring and annoying. And really really really really really stupid.

Most forms of entertainment seem to have entered a death spiral in the last decade. It's like they've gone way down below the lowest common denominator. No dears, your music and game and movie sales are not going down because of net piracy. Yeah, some of it is people not having as much disposable income, but a big part of it is that your music and games and movies suck ass.

From the advertising and the soul and mind destroying dreck that is being advertised, it's like they think of us as mindless drooling cows. Or sheep - take your pick of animals known for herding and timidity.

[riverdeep]

65. Sports bars I can understand having a TV.

But for everything else, it's really annoying, like you said. A local Mexican restaurant that I USED to go to, put in TVs, and now the atmosphere is ruined, for me. I guess most people are just used to having TV in the background of their lives, especially when they're eating, that it's a positive for them. A sweet pacifier, delivering a steady, familiar, calming noise.

[jeffrey_X]

64. it's getting dumber as well. I look at some of these ads on TV and wonder how a board room full...

of people approved the concept.

It's mind boggling.

[AwakeAtLast]

67. My Kindergarten age daughter all of a sudden says "F-R-E-E, that spells free."

I was about to say something like, "Hey! You know how to spell the word 'free', that's great!"

Then she continues, "credit report dot com baby!" Aaarrrgghhhh!!! :banghead:

It is a little funny, though, in a "kill me now" kind of way. x(