There really are some jobs I, an American, won't do.
I have all the skills to work in various positions in advertising and I sometimes enjoy ad work. I've won awards for radio ads. I've also been jobless for many months now.
Unfortunately, I'm also principled. As many of you know from a previous diary, I turned down a job offered to me from a corporation I knew was evil.
This time, there's a job I might get, but I am not even applying for it. Someone will though, so I had to share-
This Craigslist Ad is what got my hackles up-
AdChek, the pioneer and leader of patented paycheck stub advertising, is looking for a production manager. For more information on the company please visit our web site www.Adchek.com.
I don't feel too bad not applying this time because it involves print adwork which I don't have all that much experience in, but my god... advertising on paychecks?!
This is George Bush's America. This is what happens when the corporations win- advertising everywhere, even on our pay.
As someone who has created ads, I understand the pervasiveness of advertising in this country. Walk down a single block of any commercial street and you will see advertisements and logos by the dozens. We actually live in a world where Times Square in New York, essentially a giant lit-up 'buy stuff' sign, is one of the city's most popular tourist attractions!
And now we live in a world where nothing is exempt from advertising. A couple of years ago, I saw an ad for a website on a fruit label I was peeling off a peach. Now they are even advertising on our pay stubs?!
I believe our generation is probably already lost to the world of advertising. We get suckered, we get taken in, we fondly remember characters like Toucan Sam and the Kool-Aid Man as if they were part of our artistic and cultural heritage and not ever designed to part you from your money.
If you don't think you've been suckered by ad culture, let me give you a little lesson about an American 'folk hero,' Paul Bunyan, the giant lumberjack-
That same year William B. Laughead wrote and illustrated Introducing Mr. Paul Bunyan of Westwood, California, the first in a series of Paul Bunyan advertising pamphlets for the Red River Lumber Company. The firm was headquartered in Minneapolis but by then had moved most of its logging operations to the west coast. Some of the stories in the pamphlet were based on Bunyan tales Laughead had heard a decade earlier in a lumber camp near Bemidji, Minnesota. A few were based on other logging yarns or Laughead's own experiences, presumably exaggerated. Laughead is credited with naming Babe the blue ox and Johnny Inkslinger, the clerk who has an ink hose connected to his pen.
The first two Paul Bunyan pamphlets in 1914 and 1916 enjoyed only modest success, but the third in 1922 was a hit and brought the giant lumberjack international fame. Additional Bunyan pamphlets appeared sporadically until the company went out of business in the 1940s. Red River trademarked a Paul Bunyan image described as looking like "Shirley Temple with a mustache." But neither it nor Laughead ever copyrighted the stories, which were distributed for free.
So, we are lost, it's built into our history- but our kids are not. Children can be as easily swayed by advertising as adults, but we need to put a stop to that. We need to start teaching our children to be wise consumers, to not identify with brands, to recognize when we are being advertised to since so much of it is almost subliminal- did you ever think about the fact that all those 'Von Dutch' and 'Bebe' shirts which have the logos prominently displayed are just ads? Congratulations, you've become a walking billboard and shelled out $50 to do it!
Our kids need to learn that the world is not one big ad. We need to teach them now. I am not a parent, but if I were, my child would find my (and their, until they were old enough to buy it themselves) wardrobe logo-free. They would find the cleaning products to be generics if the generics are cheaper.
They would also find that we don't ever watch commercial TV. We never get together with friends to watch the Superbowl commercials and we always point out when we see an advertisement in a movie and a TV show.
Everyone on DailyKos seems to have a pet issue these days. I've decided to make the pervasiveness of advertising mine. I am going to start focusing my diaries (not always, even I occasionally advertise). And if I ever do get a job again and it is with an ad agency, I will probably go back to making ads... but what I will not do is be a consumer sheep or a free billboard. The ad industry can pay me, but I am sure as hell not going to pay them.
Be aware- Advertising is crushing us. It's destroying our souls.