Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013) • Hacker News Board

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#151

Post by Luctct » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:28 PM UTC

milancurcic wrote: post #50

Boca Raton doesn't allow billboards, car dealerships, or Walmarts. We don't normally notice it, but these things jar us as soon as we go to neighboring towns. It's a subtle improvement of outdoor experience (more architecture and green spaces) that percolates into quality of life. A good analogy of this may be browsing the web with ad blockers--pages with ads are busier, noisier, and load more slowly; yes, if the pag…

The Web analogy is good to remind us that advertising has become some kind of war on the population. I remember when ads were relegated to the sides and corners of any Web page. Now they are inserted in between the paragraphs of what you're reading, some of them blink and there are also pop-ups. Some have an "x" to let you close them, but they come back just seconds later. More and more sites now will show you nothing at all if you disable ads or Javascript or even cookies. People use ad blockers because they don't want to see the ads, so it's reasonable to assume that they are not going to buy anything or if they do it's not abusive advertising that will determine their shopping decisions. But that doesn't seem to matter at all. You just have to look at the damn ad. Just look at the damn ad. Look at the ad or we will send an assassin over to your house! VIEW THE AD, DAMN IT! It's just insane.

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#152

Post by coding123 » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:29 PM UTC

Interesting content for a site filled with taboola crap.

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#153

Post by fesoliveira » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:29 PM UTC

Aerroon wrote: post #111

alganet wrote: post #37

Some additions: Stores also cannot use their full façade for advertising. Branding colors and details are OK, but logos cannot be too large (don't know the exact rule). The law is picky. Some stores cheat by having a glass façade, and using LEDs inside that glass. Like this: https://imgur.com/a/CLdUD1C Since this law was adopted, there's been an increase in full building graffiti, which is not banned. Now 10 years la…

Most of those murals look much worse than advertisements to me. I guess there's less incentive to maintain them.

Well, good thing art is subjective. To me these are leagues better than ads and they bring social commentary and inspiration far more than any ad. It's one of the few things I am proud of as someone who lived in the state of Sao Paulo for a good chunk of my life.

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#154

Post by dustincoates » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:30 PM UTC

causality0 wrote: post #114

kibwen wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since this law was adopted, there's been an increase in full building graffiti, which is not banned. Now 10 years later, it is more likely to see one of these nowadays than an empty outdoor frame Nearly all of these look like murals, not graffiti (these are distinct forms of street art). Regardless, those photos are beautiful and I'd love to have those instead of billboards in my city.

Are building murals not associated with ghettos outside the US? Where I live you know if you start seeing big faces on walls you're in the bad part of town and need to be careful.

In Houston there's enough for a website dedicated to them [0], and they aren't at all associated with "dangerous" parts of town. If anything, if you see one going up, you can bet your property taxes are, too.

[0] https://houstonmuralmap.com/

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#155

Post by Towaway69 » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:31 PM UTC

meerita wrote: post #28

luizlobo wrote: post #14

Interesting from someone that leaves in SP for 2 years and just spend about 40 days in Berlin and 21 in NY last year, this doesn’t seem to resonate as such a big difference. Berlin almost doesn’t have any billboards and NY I didn’t saw it bothered me, at least in Brooklyn. Curious on how SP was in the past. Unfortunately the city has way worst problems then billboards.

I've been in São Paulo for a week, and the city feels depressing. The architecture is horrible, boring, and not well-maintained, especially when compared to the architecture of old European cities where at least the buildings are aesthetically pleasing. The excessive advertising only worsens the situation. I've also visited Berlin, and unfortunately, it too felt quite dull.

What city doesn't feel dull? Where do you live or rather what is city that isn't dull and depressing? Without a comparison it seems strange to compare two completely different cities, in two completely different continents.

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#156

Post by samstave » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:35 PM UTC

Bloating wrote: post #127

kroltan wrote: post #36

I lived until recently in Florianópolis, one of the state capitals of Brazil. It is a naturally beautiful island city, and it has an iconic bridge leading into it ("Ponte Hercilio Luz" if you want to search for photos). For some god forsaken reason, someone got away with building a gigantic - and I mean GIGANTIC - screen billboard right in line of sight of this historic postcard. I don't recall when it was installed,…

The mayor's newphew owns the billboard company

HA!

I KNEW IT - when I first read that comment, the only thing I could think of re: "how?" was some political shenanigans.

Philippines is so much like that - for example, the Ayala family... corrupt as sin, but have their fingers in every aspect of philippines business and politics.

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#157

Post by ericmay » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:35 PM UTC

Luctct wrote: post #119

ericmay wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One key difference is the scale. You can think of a billboard as really bad graffiti that’s shoved in your face to manipulate you. Graffiti is ugly too (not to be confused with urban art) and should always be removed. Generating money for the government isn’t something to be concerned with in this context, and most likely a billboard doesn’t generate enough money for the government versus the drain it has on the publ…

You see, you just said that "We just don’t have the tools yet to objectively define beauty" and "Boston City Hall is objectively an awful building" (and holy shit, it really is awful) in the same paragraph! Don't you see the contradiction? In another comment here, someone said, "I'm not arguing for or against that - I'm just stating a fact (...) I find it extremely ugly." Hey, "I find it extremely ugly" IS arguing ag…

> Don't you see the contradiction?

No because it's true just not proven. I can't prove to you that doing squats are good for your health as a human being but I know it to be objectively true (specific conditions aside). Medicine strongly suggests that this is the case, but there's no formal proof or tool to measure it at least that I'm aware of. Good architecture roughly follows the same pattern here, but the effects are harder to measure even though the societal repercussions of bad design are profound.

> The truth of the matter is that

Completely agree. I view graffiti as more of an expression of frustration (which is well warranted) than it is art. That's not to say graffiti can't be art or can't be beautiful which is why I called out "urban art" specifically, but it's by far the exception and not the rule.

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#158

Post by samstave » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:37 PM UTC

rektide wrote: post #62

kroltan wrote: post #36

I lived until recently in Florianópolis, one of the state capitals of Brazil. It is a naturally beautiful island city, and it has an iconic bridge leading into it ("Ponte Hercilio Luz" if you want to search for photos). For some god forsaken reason, someone got away with building a gigantic - and I mean GIGANTIC - screen billboard right in line of sight of this historic postcard. I don't recall when it was installed,…

Far less offensive but the DC metro got screen ads & it just so cheapens the experience. Used to be a kind of impressive semi-brutalist feeling, which isn't super fancy or anything. But now just tacky.

Im surprised there hasnt been more efforts to hack these things MaxHeadroom style and do subversive propaganda...

I cant wait until someone hacks on of these screens and does deepfakes on them - either some politicians doing crazy things, or celebrities doing crazy things, or more subtle ads that seem real, but are taking the piss.

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#159

Post by sischoel » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:39 PM UTC

gom_jabbar wrote: post #91

In Zurich, the ban against billboards was recently introduced as well. It reminds me of the discussion of ad blockers on websites like Youtube and Co. After all, advertising is actually a fundamental part of the economy. How are things in Sao Paolo 10 years later?

Do you have any sources on that? The only thing I could find was that some parties want to ban digital billboard in the city of Zurich (not the whole canton).

Re: Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013)

#160

Post by vc9999 » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 4:39 PM UTC

NoboruWataya wrote: post #27

andsoitis wrote: post #4

Love the idea, but the execution can be better. The photos show empty billboard frames, remnants of old ads against walls, etc., making things look dilapidated but not in an Anthens-ancient-ruin kind of way.

Would be cool if these spaces (or some of them) were given to local artists to use.

That's basically what happened, just google São Paulo street art.