On Marketing

This blog, on occasion, stands appalled at some grotesque display of a new marketing atrocity, infuriating manipulation, baffling surrealism or sheer rage inducing hatefulness. The horror of advertising isn't just how spiritually and psychologically toxic so much of it is, but that we're all soaking in it.

Those who make a living studying all the ways humans can be manipulated into wanting, or fearing or hating or loving must themselves, ultimately feel nothing but contempt.

As illustrated by the popular new trend in advertising: threatening, beating up, or otherwise attacking ...their customers.


It's not like this is tough sub-text to deconstruct. These are messages right up there on the surface. The producers of all the crap we consume have come to hate us.

We're fickle. We're demanding. We don't show appropriate brand loyalty or respect for their intellectual property rights. We push our politicians to regulate the behavior of our corporate masters and even resort to the shameful and distressingly effective practice of suing for corporate malfeasance as if everyone had equal recourse to the law or something.

They've come to just fucking loathe us and can't even hide it anymore.

Those in advertising and marketing are on the front lines of the war against your brain.

They're winning.