The American Collective Psyche and Advertising

[cafe]

I agree with the nostalgia/brainwashing thing. I think it is partly because I'm GenX and I remember things like Saturday morning cartoons being the highlight of my week. Then cable started being a thing (or it already was, but my family was able to afford it) and a lot of the cartoons were thirty minute toy commercials for action figures, etc. It was still fairly clumsy back then. It was less so by the time I had kids.

I love Spaghettios and I can hear the jingle in my head with no effort at all. I have a ton of jingles/parts of jingles in my head. The nostalgia of my childhood is very commercialized. I don't think this is a good thing, but the fondness lingers. I would still be eating Ding Dongs and Twinkies, etc if they were not a bunch of union busting dirtbags. I love McDonald's cheeseburgers. They are shit food, but I love them. If I had been introduced to them as an adult, they would probably make me puke.

 

[Thalassa]

^^^

Yes. I cannot describe to you my unfettered glee in seeing the little girl from Poltergeist in a Strawberry Shortcake commercial on You Tube after not seeing it for twenty years. This has been several years ago itself, when You Tube was more of a newer discovery. I am especially attached to things that spark hazy latent memories of being about 2-5 years old. I mean 6-12 is cool too, but some thing about the early 80s, no matter how repressed or indistinct, feels right to me. I finally realized that songs that made me feel haunted were probably just songs my mom listened to before I had fully conscious memories. Like when I was a baby, I must have heard it.

I had no clue that the Smurfs and Poochie were a franchise. And yeah there are some things I want to eat even if I ethically disagree, or objectively know it's just comfort food. Like Wendy's hamburger the exact way I used to order it as a child, with no cheese and lettuce, tomato and mayo.

Oh yes the joy of finding an orange and a Hershey bar in my grandfather's lunch pail, after he asked me to "put it away for him" with a wink, even though a Hershey bar is like 1/4 vegetable oil and watered down cheap chocolate.

That is why I think totally annihilating this stuff also seems cruel, like ripping people's past from them. I see so many people online who are like this. On Personality Cafe there's a generation section where I watch twenty year olds get nostalgic about 90s Nickelodeon. It seems fairly universal, though maybe more so for certain personality types, idk.

 

[Mole]

The American archetype is not created by advertising, rather advertising exploits the American archetype.

And it was the great American of the 20th century, Edward Bernays, who taught us how to exploit the American archetype in his book called, Propaganda.

And naturally Oz also exploits the American archetype in our movies and our celebritities. And why not? America is the biggest consumer market in the world. And we hop in for our chop.

 

[Werebudgie]

[MENTION=6877]Marmotini[/MENTION], I haven't read through all the comments but so far can say that I appreciate the honest intelligence of your OP. Nice thread topic!

 

[chubber]

Fuck culture and national identity. Identify yourself to yourself, within your boundaries with reasonable consideration for others and the rest will fall into place.

Idealism and competitive edge is at heart of the worst in humanity. Idealism because it breeds and fosters extremity; competitive edge because of idealism whereby people leverage off others because of a lack of self and dependency on collective opinion.

somebody's inferior Fi kicked in...

 

[Vasilisa]

Hi Marmie, good food for thought. I wonder if you happened to see The Century of Self (credit to [MENTION=6723]phobik[/MENTION]), that got me to thinking about some of the phenomenon you describe, I posted a bit about it here and found some interesting reading on it here. The self in this modern, commercialized capitalist age fascinates me and I'm interested in what others have to post about it.

 

[1487610420]

Exactly, everyone is effected by this, and there is no alternative. But it isn't "brainwashing", and it's most certainly not mindcontrol. That doesn't exist. The reason have great teeth, is not just because of colgate. It's because it's well established, scientifically, that brushing your teeth is needed for good dental health. Colgate meerly took advangate of that, and it's a good thing they did.

Yes, it's clear you did, but you still didn't address the points that I made. And I already said, I don't see children as being mindlessly trained to particpate in harmful corporations. I do not see it as a big deal because it gets resolved. Children are really impressionable, to everything. You want them to be pure, keep em in a bubble. This is just the typical "think of the children argument!" which is nothing more than emotional pleading. You either have advertisement, or you don't. With how the world works, it needs to be in place. It sucks, but it's how it is, and it really isn't a problem. I already explained how it isn't.

Again, what alternative is there? This is how the world is, you might not like it, but that doesn't make that any different. There is little we can do to change it, because it's needed. Yes, it sucks, and as I said I agree with you that Nestle is not a good company. But solving the problem if them wouldn't be done by just ending consumerism. The medicine would be worse than the disease in that case anyway. What your suggesting we uproot can't be done. As I already said, what can be done is going after the companies themselves. That's viable futile.

FYP.

 

[rav3n]

somebody's inferior Fi kicked in...

Address the points. The rest is too familiar and irrelevant.

 

[Thalassa]

FYP.

It's not futile. Frito Lays and Pepsi profit began to drop with the aggressive health movement, including the government implementation of healthier food in school and Get Moving.


Nestle is a monster because half the time people don't know they are buying Nestle when they purchase seemingly unrelated brands. Which is why I attack them directly.

Buying from small business is also a way to fight corporate profits.

This nation was built on small and family business. I have no issues with business.

 

[1487610420]

It's not futile. Frito Lays and Pepsi profit began to drop with the aggressive health movement, including the government implementation of healthier food in school and Get Moving.


Nestle is a monster because half the time people don't know they are buying Nestle when they purchase seemingly unrelated brands. Which is why I attack them directly.

Buying from small business is also a way to fight corporate profits.

This nation was built on small and family business. I have no issues with business.

Hmm, in grand scheme re fixing everything? It is. As a catalyst for change? Maybe not. Perhaps more clarification was required. /lazy

 

[Mole]

Reframing Advertising

Advertising teaches us how to enjoy the product.

If we reframe advertising in this way, we get a new perspective.

So advertising has been framed, and we take the guilt of advertising for granted.

But if we can frame, we can reframe.

And we can step outside the frame by saying that advertising teaches us how to enjoy the product.

 

[Thalassa]

Advertising teaches us how to enjoy the product.

If we reframe advertising in this way, we get a new perspective.

So advertising has been framed, and we take the guilt of advertising for granted.

But if we can frame, we can reframe.

And we can step outside the frame by saying that advertising teaches us how to enjoy the product.

No, it teaches us how to enjoy the idea of the product. There in lies the problem.

Just like priests, advertising execs will flat out tell you if you have them in the playpen you have them for life.

It's a concept old as dirt that has been used by people who are powerful and want social control since before advertising existed.

The corporate form of capitalism is very similar to warped experiments with communism.

 

[Thalassa]

Even the word corporation implies unity, togetherness, for the good of all. In the U.S. we actually have CORPORATE PERSONHOOD.

I have had people try to argue with me that corporations are for the good of mankind. Like Pure Mercury, a very intelligent ESFJ who drank the kool aid.

Kool aid, see, brand symbol archetypes!

 

[Coriolis]

What I don't agree with at all, is that advertizement is inheriently evil, that all business is bad because it's business, and all those at high positions are evil. You haven't given anything that suggests that it is other than personal opinion of what you have experienced. It just strikes me as "sheeple! Fuck the system! Because it's the system!" and I just don't take well to that at all, as it causes more problems than it tries to fix.

Advertising may not be inherently evil, but at least in the US today, most of it is downright manipulative. Its purpose is to stimulate action on the part of the viewer, specifically the spending of money. Advertising should focus less on the customer and more on the product. Present the product in the most accurate and transparent light, and let it attract customers who are really interested. A good product will sell itself to those who need or want it. It's a bit like dating: you don't have to make everyone want to go out with you; be yourself, and attract the right ones.

“An ad that pretends to be art is -- at absolute best -- like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you. This is dishonest, but what's sinister is the cumulative effect that such dishonesty has on us: since it offers a perfect facsimile or simulacrum of goodwill without goodwill's real spirit, it messes with our heads and eventually starts upping our defenses even in cases of genuine smiles and real art and true goodwill. It makes us feel confused and lonely and impotent and angry and scared. It causes despair."

Exactly.

Just like priests, advertising execs will flat out tell you if you have them in the playpen you have them for life.

I agree for the most part, but as with religion, some us manage to shake alot of it off. Why is that, and if some of us do it, why not the rest? I grew up in a fairly average middle class household. No special efforts were made to insulate me from TV, advertising, gender targeting of toys/clothes, or anything else. My parents were older, and probably had rather traditional ideas about gender and many other topics. It didn't take me long to reject most of that, though.

 

[Thalassa]

Advertising may not be inherently evil, but at least in the US today, most of it is downright manipulative. Its purpose is to stimulate action on the part of the viewer, specifically the spending of money. Advertising should focus less on the customer and more on the product. Present the product in the most accurate and transparent light, and let it attract customers who are really interested. A good product will sell itself to those who need or want it. It's a bit like dating: you don't have to make everyone want to go out with you; be yourself, and attract the right ones.

Exactly.

I agree for the most part, but as with religion, some us manage to shake alot of it off. Why is that, and if some of us do it, why not the rest? I grew up in a fairly average middle class household. No special efforts were made to insulate me from TV, advertising, gender targeting of toys/clothes, or anything else. My parents were older, and probably had rather traditional ideas about gender and many other topics. It didn't take me long to reject most of that, though.

You know, it may be personality, and maybe it is more effective on certain personalities...I have most often heard that Si Fe or Fe Si types are most "doomed" to their environment. Even if they are smart the nature of their function order makes in group or family norms very difficult to overcome, like the ESFJ who is raised in the mafia. That is why I balk at the stereotype that all SJs are conservative or whatever, because no Si is individual and in groups vary in their values.

For me and people like me, it's almost like half of me wants it and half of me doesn't, and the half of me that wants it is for dreamlike delusional childish comfort. A sort of freedom in innocent ignorance.

 

[Thalassa]

In fact I wonder how some one would speculate on my function order based on my lifelong reaction to media and gender roles. I embraced anything in my environment enthusiastically as a child, I was a great trend spotter, I had the good sense to like David Bowie when I was all of SIX and at seven knew how to.look like a current rock star in a talent show, and we didn't even have MTV until I was about ten. On the Disney channel I picked out little Fergie on KIDS Incorporated as my favorite, and had every album that mattered by begging my family. I still have a catalog of pop culture and commercial culture in my head, but also philosophically resist it, and hate when people are walking adverts unless it's ironic.

I collected data throughout my childhood to categorize as an adult.

I am.more clear on the eighties than the 00s, though I was busy living life then, didn't watch tv for at least a two year period of the 00s and just recalled that 00s music channel was fuse. It was more important to collect data about Vegas in the 00s, my immediate environment, than pop culture tv trends, though I can name bands and movies I personally enjoyed from the last decade.

Se dom? Ne dom? Si dom? I don't think the latter is possible because of.my adventurous approach to life.

 

[chubber]

Address the points. The rest is too familiar and irrelevant.

Only adding context to it.