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 Uncle Sam Wants You...To work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year -- for the rest of your life! --Processed World No. 14

Starving the Advertisers

You're not a citizen, nor even a human being; you're a consumer. That's what we all are. That's what we're supposed to be. Billions of advertising dollars are spent pitching products we don't want and services we don't need. How many ads do you see in one day? Ever take time to count them? On and on and on, so much that it becomes background noise.

For-profit corporations own the airwaves, the presses -- the massive media, in other words. They own it, and thereby control it. They deliver you, the audience, as product for their clients -- the advertisers. That may seem ass-backwards, right? You think you're the client buying the product, whether a sitcom, or a magazine, or a newspaper. But you're not -- those shows and mags are just bait to get you to swallow advertising cheese.

That's how for-profit media beat out working class media -- they did it through advertising revenue. The old working class presses relied on subscriptions, whereas ad-based media could write off the costs because they were getting money from companies wanting to sell their products to you. A tidy, effective arrangement -- especially when you have a mass of people who just have a knee-jerk response to advertising. You don't know why you picked up those breath mints or chewing gum or fried chicken -- it just caught your eye.

The fact is that advertising works. The industry wouldn't spend billions annually if it didn't work. It underpins the consumer culture that thrives around us. But this same thing is based on the ignorance of the consumer, so what you have to do is become aware of the ads around you.

Capitalist society lives or dies on this consumption; fortunes are made and lost on it -- well, more made than lost, because people consume so much, it's really like shooting fish in a barrel. What the average person needs is advertising inoculation -- take a step back and defend yourself from the barrage of advertising.

Advertising is propaganda -- the only difference is that it is for economic interests, and not political ones. But the methodologies remain the same. Viewing advertising as propaganda, you can see that our society is inundated with propaganda on a level that would make Stalin green with envy!

People usually consider propaganda bad -- they see it as manipulative and misinformative, but somehow advertising doesn't really get the same treatment. It's seen as harmless -- even entertaining. But if you trace people's buying habits to advertising, you can see the very real harm behind it all. Say Nike and Gap and their constant ads and use of sweatshop labor -- the ads increase purchases of their products, and ensure that those sweatshops keep on humming to meet the demand. Very real consequences.

Even more perverse, people often shell out big money to wear advertising slogans and symbols on their persons -- that's the epitome of sickness, paying for the privilege to become a walking billboard. When ads become status symbols or fashion accessories, you know we've got a sick culture on our hands.

And what about those programs about advertisements? Like "the world's funniest ads" or the Cleo Awards for advertising excellence? People wasting their lives and time watching programs about ads like they were a form of entertainment themselves. I recall many people saying, "Oh, I don't watch the Superbowl for the game; I watch it for the ads." Does that seem wrong to you? It does to me.

In the consumer culture, you are what you buy, you are what you own. The less you own, the less you are. That's the "ideal" arrangement, and it's a crock; no way for a human being to live at all.

What's worse, corporations are busy infiltrating schools with their ad campaigns and Channel One crap to create a next generation of lil' consumers out of that captive audience. They are exploiting the continuing financial problems of the education system to their advantage. The best way to waste that money is to not become a consumer.

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So, what can you do to combat this? Maybe you don't want to combat it at all -- maybe you dig it. If so, then don't proceed. Just keep on consuming. But if you've got the slightest inclination to think for yourself, try the following:

Project 1: Counting Ads Up

Take some time to count how many ads you run across in a day -- whether on the radio, television, newspaper, magazine, catalogues, billboards, people's t-shirts -- wherever you find one. Just have a scrap of paper handy and keep a tally one day, just to see how much advertising you're being exposed to. That's probably a good estimate for what you're exposed to in a week, so multiply it out to see how many ads you're exposed to in a year.

Project 2: Watch and Learn

Evaluate the ads you see -- take them apart and think about who they're appealing to, what their message is. The message is always the same: buy this product and be cool. For example, a recent car ad I saw showed a bunch of Generation X people washing cars, and when they saw this Boomer's fancy car go by, they decided to wash it for free, they thought the car was just so cool. Then the smug Boomer stands by with another buddy and says, "That's the third time they washed my car today."

If you state the message directly, it ends up being revealed as stupid -- "Boomers, buy this car and stupid slackers will beat a path to kiss your ass." I notice a ton of ads are geared toward Baby Boomers, mostly because they're the largest, most affluent demographic out there.

Anyway, as you think a little about how ads do what they do, you'll begin to see how formulaic they are, and what psychological techniques they routinely use to sell products, to better prepare yourself to defend against them. Keep in mind that ads always want you to have a favorable opinion of the product and the company, and very often rely on simple slogans they repeat like a mantra ("did somebody say McDonald's?")

 One of the weirdest ones was Chiquita (which has a nasty human rights record in the banana republics it runs), where they say "Chiquita, for over 100 years, quite possibly nature's perfect food" -- here you see a company literally being bananas -- trying to weld the product (bananas) with the company name (Chiquita) in your mind. If you looked at what Chiquita has done in Central and South America, I doubt you'd eat another one.

Project 3: Know What to Buy and Why

Keep track of your buying habits -- why are you buying a given product? Try to trace the thought -- what made you decide to throw down money for the junk you purchased. Do even know? Have you seen the ad somewhere? If so, where? Once you start doing this, you'll be able to spot it -- like you'll see/hear an ad campaign, and suddenly spot the product on people's desk. What really rattles them is if you ask them where they thought to buy that! Most won't know; if you ask them if they saw the ad campaign, they usually won't remember. Those that do will get spooked, which is worthwhile in itself. The ones who remain drones will get mad at you for pointing it out, and will deny that the ad had any role in their purchase.

Once you become more aware of ads and their influence, you can attempt to deal with them on your own terms.

Project 4: Remove the Brand

Abandon brand loyalty. Don't be a good, reliable consumer. If you're wedded to a brand name, you're a sucker, deriving satisfaction and identity from a company's product -- your self-worth is tied into that product, whether you know it or not.

So, when Coke and Pepsi have their Cola Wars, maybe you should just stop drinking their crap altogether. I've found people have near-religious intensity in their devotion to their soft drinks. Like a Coke drinker will get livid at the notion of drinking Pepsi -- like the Bloods and the Crips going at it or something. I think that's funny and sad.

Project 5: Buy Nothing

Stop buying things that are advertised.

Specifically don't buy something that has an ad for it -- sort of a qualitative boycott. Boycotts scare the hell out of companies, even though they talk about how boycotts don't work. So make your personal boycott stick. Don't buy anything you've seen advertised. It depends on being aware of the ads around you.

This gets at the industry at the foundation -- their clout stems from people making purchases based on their advertising. By not purchasing what they are advertising, by not being a consumer, you're screwing with them. Now, this only works if a bunch of people start doing this -- advertising works in volume, in economies of scale. One person not purchasing advertised products doesn't matter much, but a bunch of people, well, that makes a difference. Companies can't make profits if people won't buy their goods.

Usually, boycotts are tied to something specific -- Company X uses slave labor, so don't buy their products. The company then plays lip service to reformist groups, or hires a PR firm to clean up its image, and usually the boycott lifts. But a qualitative boycott is another bird entirely -- it boycotts the comapny itself, out of sheer spite.

Our consumer culture paints purchasing as almost your patriotic duty -- if you don't buy stuff, you're bad. I'm not saying don't buy stuff, but only that you don't buy stuff that's advertised. Say there are some pants you really dig from the Gap -- look for them at a thrift store, where you can get them for $3.00, instead of $30.00, and your money will go to help the thrift store, and not the Gap outlet. Or find other ways of getting what you want, whether buying something from a competitor -- the point is to put a disconnect between ad money spent and product sales.

Project 6: Keep Style, Dump Fashion

Style comes from inside; fashion is on the outside -- fashion is cultural fast food, and if you want to develop yourself as something other than a consumer of it, dump it. Fashion, fad, and trend are dirty words -- currency of the consumer culture that are designed to keep you chasing after the NEXT BIG THING. So stop running, stop chasing -- define who you are on your own terms, not on the terms of fashion moguls and advertising execs.

This sounds easy, but it's not -- we're always being told what's in and out, over and over again, in an endless cycle of splurging and purging. I remember when folks would joke about 70s bell bottoms (called these days "flares") coming back -- and then they did, with a vengeance.

The only constant in the world of fashion is self-abuse and endless external validation -- you derive your self-worth from what you own, buy, eat, or wear. This is no way to live. Lose it. Be unfashionable, be yourself. This is consumer culture heresy, because you're always supposed to conform to the dictates of the fashion police, right? It's so bad that even anti-fashion is fashionable in some quarters (piercings, anyone?) The consumer culture can assimilate just about anything that requires external validation of worth, so the way you beat that game is by not playing. Avoid fads, consumer crazes, trends, gimmicks -- they are plagues, the product of cultural bankruptcy.

Do that and you'll cultivate style -- where you decide how and why you look, not what other people think you should look like. The rule of thumb: if you're in a room full of people who all look the same, you're being fashionable, so stop it! If somebody says "you look like an anarchist" you're doing something very, very wrong.

Project 7: Fire the Media

Dump the mass media -- do not buy newspapers, magazines, or purchase products advertised on broadcast media. Massive media -- TIME, Newsweek, New York Times, New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Glamour, NPR, Redbook, Seventeen, etc., etc. -- forget about them.

Now, you might think, "geez, how will I be informed?" That's buying into the media trap -- they are not informing you; they are misinforming you. And if you purchase their products, you're creating the illusion that they are doing their job -- they communicate that to their advertisers as "audience" -- 200,000 people read this paper, 1,000,000 people listen to this radio show. This trend is going on as we speak; people continue to purchase fewer media products, and it has alarmed the whiz kids who own and run them. They're caught up in the notion of them being objective, informative news gatherers. But they're really peddling ads for consumers, and trying to keep you coming with titilation and scandal. So don't play the game.

There's nothing to say you can't read their tripe -- go to a bookstore or a library and read it there; but don't buy it. Don't subscribe. Leave them in the dirt. If you can't live without your sitcom, that's fine -- just make sure you don't buy anything they're advertising. Watch how long your program lasts if nobody buys the products its selling, then you'll see how the media really works.

What's the point of this? In the consumer society, the dollar rules over democracy -- they like to pretend that the consumer spending patterns are the only legitimate voice of political expression. You like Coke, Levi's, and Chevrolets -- the people have spoken. Instead, give a vote of "no confidence" -- do not buy what they are selling. You gain by not blowing money on crap you don't need, if nothing else.

Project 8: Support Alternative Media

There are alternative media out there, but they are hard to come by, because they don't have the major bucks that the massive media have. But you can find them if you look hard enough. That's sort of a helpful rule of thumb for finding them -- if you can easily locate them, they're too mainstream! Avoid bogus alternative publications -- you can usually spot them by their focus on lifestyle issues and so forth. Alternative media need your support, so support them -- you can do it with the money you've saved by not being a consumer! I indicated a few on "Decent Publications" (PR Watch, Covert Action Quarterly, Multinational Monitor, Z Magazine, and others).

Also, try to find micropower radio in your area. This might take some doing on your part, but they're out there. And you can also look into public access television -- perhaps you could start a program there. I don't know the current state of public access these days, but theoretically it's still out there.

Project 9: Out-of-Focus Groups

Participate in advertising focus groups and give them screwy answers. Have you ever been in one? They pay money for your participation, usually a given amount they think is a suitable bribe ($20, $40, $60, or more, if you're better-heeled) and then they put you in a room with a really cheery person who'll walk you through a talk about their product -- there will be a mirrored wall on one side, or something like that, as the ad people try to gauge your reactions. There are usually some beverages present, too -- they want you to feel at ease and important.

Now, if enough people are doing 1 through 6, the focus groups will be working overtime to try to figure out what the hell is going on, which is why it'd be so cool if you can participate in these, taking industry money to mess with their heads and give them crummy information.

You have to be careful with this, though -- these people are polished psychological manipulators, so if you're too obviously off-the-wall, they'll likely boot you and exclude you from future focus groups. It doesn't take much to be considerd "off-the-wall" with corporate types, so try to be convincing.

Of course, this'll work better as more people become media-savvy; if it's just you in the group, then you're going to be marked off as a statistical anomaly -- that happened with me during a Degree deodorant focus group, where my opinions were totally off the radar of the others in the group (basically, they all bought brand name deodorants, and I didn't, so I was the "freaky one" -- the statistical blip.)

So, be abnormally normal -- go against what makes sense, and stick to it. Give them bad information, but give it honestly and sincerely, and don't let the facilitator or the other members of the focus group talk you around to their point of view. This information they gather will be used to tailor and target ads toward the demographic group they're after. Advertising is all about demographics, so the more you can futz with their attempts to buttonhole an age group, the better.

If you're young (18-24, that succulent demographic group for advertisers), they'll really try to play you, and they'll likely think you're a knucklehead, because they think young folks are all slackers, so play to that, while consciously giving them bad information. Bad information produces bad ads, and costs the industry money.

Project 10: Culture Jamming

Screw with ads. This is for the artistically inclined, and it's fun. Check out Adbusters for some examples.

With current computer technology (scanners, desktop publishing, and graphic design programs) culture jamming is eminently doable. This is something where you have to use your imagination -- the hat trick of culture jamming is taking a familiar format, an ad, symbol or a sign, and while keeping the form intact, you change the substance of it, putting a different message within the familiar format.

For example, you could take a Coke ad ("Coke is it") and change it to "Choke" or "Coke is shit" or something like that. Or you could change the graphic of an ad and put some other message. A good culture-jammed ad is one that your everyday consumer might not even notice right away, because they're so used to either blowing off ads or passively absorbing the message. As I'd said, check out Adbusters for some examples, because they've been doing this for years. Also, check out Hakim Bey's essay, "Poetic Terrorism" for some interesting ideas.

If you come up with some good ones, send them to me and I'll put them up on this page. (http://pmayhem.org/feedback.html)

Project 11: Abracadabra

"If you have to ask, you'll never know."

--Louis Armstrong