Put your hands in the air, because we’re surrounded!
Have you ever flicked through the channels on your TV or radio for a good 5-10 minutes or more trying to find a station that wasn’t playing a commercial? Have you ever answered a phone call from a telemarketer in a different language hoping he or she would never call back and tell any telemarketer friends you must have moved?
We are surrounded by advertisements. They’re on restroom stall doors, sidewalks, pens; even YouTube is following the trend of placing commercials in before you can watch the video that you clicked on. Hulu, my once online television sanctuary, went from placing about four commercials in a show to around 15.
Reports calculate that on average people will be exposed to hundreds, even thousands, of commercial advertisements in one day. Global corporations will spend around $620 billion a year marketing their products. Think of how much time, energy, and money must go into that process. By age 21 the average person will have watched one million commercials. Think of how much of your precious life is wasted by corporations trying to sell you things!
In my opinion, most ads and commercials are ugly, pointless and detrimental to self-esteem or some combination of the three. They feed on the insecurities and weaknesses of their consumers to get them to buy the product. They tell us we are fat, pimple faced, unsuccessful and will be lonely forever unless we buy their products.
Children are being subjected to ads everyday telling them they will never be good enough. Monopolizing moneymakers think they can exploit our consumer- driven culture to do what they want.
They tickle the underbelly of society until the change falls out of our pockets, and we let them! That’s the terrifying thing. We allow them to cover up our buildings and streets with their billboards and throw manipulating messages into our programs that say how much better we’d be, feel or look if we bought whatever it is they’re selling. It’s gotten so bad many people don’t even know the difference between necessity and luxury.
We are told to just buy, buy, and buy, so we do. Feel outdated and underappreciated? There’s an app for that. Men, feel like you’re just not performing as well as you could in the bedroom? Well, there’s an app for that, too! Women and men are poisoning themselves, buying new body parts and accessories when they should be loving who they are. We should be loving life, and being alive, without putting a price tag on it. Whoever you are is more than enough.
There should be no reason for the body-abusing, trendy gun show that we buy into. I would like to go through at least one day without trying to be bought or fought over by what company thinks it makes the best soap. I’d like to get in my car and not have to drive past sign after sign. If it’s not too much to ask, I’d like to not have to unsubscribe and delete e-mails from people who somehow invaded my inbox with their online sales magazines.
So throw your hands down on the counter. Support your local businesses before they become the fat cats’ next fat meal. Don’t allow yourself to be exploited for someone else’s gain. Only you should be able to choose on what you spend your hard-earned money
