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How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

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Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#241

Post by smsm42 »

undersuit wrote: post #232
smsm42 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Image a day in your life without coming across an ad I have had such days. I read a lot of stuff online, and I have adblockers. My entertainment is supplied by books and TV, where I watch either channels like Netflix or recorded shows, where I can skip through commercials. It's not exactly not encountering ads - and I surely encounter billboards when I drive around (though I don't think I can recall any of them, th…

Food and Shelter don't need advertisements. Hamburger Helper and Mariott need advertisements. Advertisements don't help finding a realtor or choosing a store to shop food for at. Advertisements don't help in acquiring clothes. Capitalism did all these things with very little help from modern advertisement since the "invention" of capital. >I've lived in another kind of society - where people spend resources on findin…

> Capitalism did all these things with very little help from modern advertisement since the "invention" of capital.

Media advertising exists at least since 18th century (in our common modern understanding, commercial and political writings that can be reasonably considered ads were found on the walls of Pompeii, and probably exist since writing was invented). So there pretty much was never a period where modern capitalism existed and advertising didn't.

> How would overt modern advertising have fixed that?

It is not fixing that, it is a direct and inevitable result of abundance of resources. If you have surplus of resources available for consumption, you will need to choose which ones to consume. Thus, advertising - i.e. speech that is intended to make you to choose one particular resource - becomes profitable.

> Does advertising even help with finding decent food

Depends on advertising. Some does, some doesn't.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#242

Post by [deleted] »

smsm42 wrote: post #212
threatofrain wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you'll have an American realist Walmart boss telling you to "cheer" up. I see it as unvalued emotional labor, and degrading to those who do it as they are non-negotiably expected to do it. Some people are into this, and some aren't -- but if you are poor and working retail, then you must smile and sometimes sing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOkQJm_UGM4

I have hard time to see how being nice to people is "degrading". Is it somehow assumed that only assholes are real decent people and anyone who is nice to the clients is automatically degrading themselves? Yes, I get it - working as a clerk in a store like Walmart is not the most luxurious job in the world. But I, as a client, is not at fault that the clerk is not a billionaire hedge fund manager (neither am I btw).…

[deleted]

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#243

Post by anigbrowl »

ameister14 wrote: post #99
anigbrowl wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This ignores the fact that many journalistic endeavors have been borne out by historical factors, although perhaps in your model of the world all journalists and social change occur only at the will of powerful forces which manipulate things from behind the scene. But not you, of course.

If you're trying to say that journalistic endeavors occurred because of multiple historical factors and not just a shadowy cabal, which is what I think you were trying to say, you may mean borne out of, not borne out by. 'Borne out by' essentially means 'proven by,' whereas 'borne out of' means 'came about because of.'

I mean by. I typed factors when I meant events because I was half-listening to someone talking at the time :-/

To be clear, my point is that journalism can be evaluated by how well it predicts outcomes, or how reliably it documents things that are subsequently judged to matter.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#244

Post by carapace »

smsm42 wrote: post #212
threatofrain wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you'll have an American realist Walmart boss telling you to "cheer" up. I see it as unvalued emotional labor, and degrading to those who do it as they are non-negotiably expected to do it. Some people are into this, and some aren't -- but if you are poor and working retail, then you must smile and sometimes sing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOkQJm_UGM4

I have hard time to see how being nice to people is "degrading". Is it somehow assumed that only assholes are real decent people and anyone who is nice to the clients is automatically degrading themselves? Yes, I get it - working as a clerk in a store like Walmart is not the most luxurious job in the world. But I, as a client, is not at fault that the clerk is not a billionaire hedge fund manager (neither am I btw).…

Being nice to people isn't degrading (in fact, it's uplifting.) Being required to pretend to be nice or else is degrading.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#245

Post by carapace »

smsm42 wrote: post #238
apexalpha wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>(though I don't think I can recall any of them, the mind filters them out by now), Oh no no no. That is not how that works. Coca cola doesn't put up signs, ads, billboards, coaters and napkin holders with their logo on it to get you to stop and think about coca cola. No. What they do it place their logo next to something that seems happy. Next to someone smiling or put it up in situations where people are happy. Rel…

> Slowly but surely, your mind will associate Coca cola with happiness and relaxing. Not really. My mind associates Coca cola with high blood sugar, diabetes and horrible tasting sugar water that would take decades off my life expectancy. Looks like I'm doing something wrong. > There is no such thing as 'filtering' out ads. I'm pretty sure there is, based on my own experience. > They are designed to infiltrate your s…

Friend, you are dangerously naive.

I don't have time to write a big long thing about how wrong you are right now, but I'll provide this though:

Santa Claus is a Coke Ad. http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/coke-lore-santa-clau...

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#246

Post by shostack »

smsm42 wrote: post #212
threatofrain wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you'll have an American realist Walmart boss telling you to "cheer" up. I see it as unvalued emotional labor, and degrading to those who do it as they are non-negotiably expected to do it. Some people are into this, and some aren't -- but if you are poor and working retail, then you must smile and sometimes sing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOkQJm_UGM4

I have hard time to see how being nice to people is "degrading". Is it somehow assumed that only assholes are real decent people and anyone who is nice to the clients is automatically degrading themselves? Yes, I get it - working as a clerk in a store like Walmart is not the most luxurious job in the world. But I, as a client, is not at fault that the clerk is not a billionaire hedge fund manager (neither am I btw).…

>"He is not forced to work this job, he could leave at any moment (he'd have to give up the salary of course)."

A couple points worth mentioning:

1. For most retail clerks, the choice to leave is often "stay in a shitty job I hate" vs. "become homeless and starve (and potentially my family as well) because there is a lack of other jobs, high competition for them, and I live paycheck-to-paycheck because the jobs I can get pay minimum wage with no benefits."

2. It might be different overseas, but in the US at least the vast majority of retail clerks are paid hourly at the minimum wage. In fact, many retail employers do their best to have managers play games with people's scheduled hours to keep them under the amount that triggers benefits and overtime.

So in many (dare I say most?) cases, yes, it is too much to expect some nice disposition by default. That said, I would hope most people, when treated nicely by customers with realistic expectations, would respond in-kind.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#247

Post by smsm42 »

carapace wrote: post #245
smsm42 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Slowly but surely, your mind will associate Coca cola with happiness and relaxing. Not really. My mind associates Coca cola with high blood sugar, diabetes and horrible tasting sugar water that would take decades off my life expectancy. Looks like I'm doing something wrong. > There is no such thing as 'filtering' out ads. I'm pretty sure there is, based on my own experience. > They are designed to infiltrate your s…

Friend, you are dangerously naive. I don't have time to write a big long thing about how wrong you are right now, but I'll provide this though: Santa Claus is a Coke Ad. http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/coke-lore-santa-clau...

> Friend, you are dangerously naive.

Tell it to me when I start drinking that colored sugar water. Since I stopped doing it 15 years ago, the thought of it still disgusts me. Maybe I need to give it more time to work...

> Santa Claus is a Coke Ad

For you, maybe. Most people have no idea about that, admittedly fascinating, bit of trivia. The article is called "Things You Never Knew" - and for a reason. It's hard for an ad to work if nobody has any idea what it is advertising. Ah, but of course - it's "subconscious", so all normal laws of the universe are suspended and magic is real.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#248

Post by bwb »

karllager wrote: post #80

As a kid, I grew up in a country with almost no advertising. Repeat after me: No ads in the streets, in the TV, in the radio, nowhere. One day we found a magazine (from another country), which contained ads. Two people smoking cigarettes in a strangely alien world, some kind of jungle - or a safari, maybe. This image was so strange in many ways: Why is it there in a magazine, that was about something completely diffe…

Imagine if we can get cheap AR glasses or contacts out to the world with new batteries. Maybe you can block them all.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#249

Post by threatofrain »

carapace wrote: post #244
smsm42 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have hard time to see how being nice to people is "degrading". Is it somehow assumed that only assholes are real decent people and anyone who is nice to the clients is automatically degrading themselves? Yes, I get it - working as a clerk in a store like Walmart is not the most luxurious job in the world. But I, as a client, is not at fault that the clerk is not a billionaire hedge fund manager (neither am I btw).…

Being nice to people isn't degrading (in fact, it's uplifting.) Being required to pretend to be nice or else is degrading.

Also, you can be nice to people without pretending to feel happy all the time, such as by smiling or singing. Being nice could mean efficiently executing their duties.

I'm not sure why talking about emotional labor, smiling and singing, suddenly brought on doubts about decency, niceness, and assholeness in the following reply. I see that as very stressful expectations to have for somebody.

Smiling is a communication of internal feelings. It puts pressure on me as the customer as well when I know my mere presence is an on-button for an emotional act for people. How draining for both parties.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#250

Post by jimmyspice »

smsm42 wrote: post #240
karllager wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is preferable to the society which underproduces things and where large part of your survival depends on you skill in finding how to satisfy basic needs - food, shelter, etc. I'd rather watch ads than be hungry. And that is perfectly correct. One thing I might add is that capitalism looks much like communism in the long run as companies merge, fuse and become bigger and bigger, because centralisation and contr…

> is that capitalism looks much like communism in the long run Not sure what you mean here. In the long run, any communist country has ended up either being completely ruined (USSR, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea) or turning back to capitalism (China, Viet Nam, East Europe). Surely capitalism's track record is not that sordid. > as companies merge, fuse and become bigger and bigger Companies also break up and whither a…

Visa and MasterCard I guess
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