Inner-space part 14- Fighting Back.

Whelp, previously, I boiled it down to that the core natural way our brain has been given as an anti-virus to bullshit, is laughter.

And in boiling down the slogan recaps, it boils down to that bullshit, particularly American bullshit, is all pretty much mutated strains of advertising.

So, let's tackle advertising with laughter, and go from there...


Here's a fun little strategy, and it's fairly passive.
Treat commercial breaks like they're all one show.
All one big, unbroken, loony, pseudo-science, paranormal/sci-fi show.
With hideous acting, and horrible soundtracks.

Cuz, given that shit's the reason TV really exists, why not see it that way?

Watch it as a stream of absurdist Dadaism, at least you can get a laugh out of it.

Or, don't be passive, engage your mind a little bit, and try this out.
Mentally string the commercials into a storyline.
Particularly enjoyable if you somehow swing it, so that the people in the last ad all get killed by the product in the next ad.

Ah, the fun you can have with a TV.

Or, if you want to get fully engaged, here's a little activity.

Next commercial break, on a piece of paper, or in a notepad, jot down each product, and then jot down if it made a pseudo-science or impossible claim, was a flat out scam/piece of junk, or if it put on a CGI puppet show without displaying or explaining the product.
If it used sex at all, that counts.

Then, next to that, a quick adjective of the overall ad "funny", "annoying", "evil shit", whatever.

Next commercial break after that, put a check on the list next to which ads repeat.
Do this for at least a whole 1 hour of programming.

Note with grim intellectual satisfaction if the ones that repeat the most are the most annoying and/or pseudo-scientific.
Or, shit, react with dumbstruck awe if the most repeated are ones that you actually like.
Either way, you're already getting more emotional response out of TV than most of those fucking shows will.
Blog about this experience, and tell me, and I'll link it.

At the very least, the resulting list, and bumped up mental perspective, will give you fodder for better playing the "imagine it's all a bad show", game.

Or, here's one that's sort of a spinoff of the "all get killed", game, that sort of makes it into a video game.
Pick a topic, say "pseudo-science", or "military industrial complex", and when an ad comes on involving one of these topics, flip channels.
Repeat this process until you come back to your original channel.
If you come back at the original topic, or especially a rerun of the original ad, you "win", and everyone involved in the intervening ads was killed.
The military by friendly fire, or spending cuts, the pseudo-science assholes by their own poison, whatever you want to dream up.
Play around with this one as much as you want.
Make a points system for how fast you work back to your channel, or how many ads it takes to do it, or whatever.
Make up your own topics, invent creative modes of death that have to do with the ads involved, get crazy with it.

TV is supposed to entertain, well, get your money's worth out of that fucking appliance.

Blog, e-mail me, or post here, and tell me what you come up with.

Playing one or more of these games, will bump your perspective up, and knock you out of the stupor you usually need to tune this shit out.

Take that perspective, and apply it to oh, say, the 700 Club.
Course, this means you'll have to watch the 700 Club, but eh, what else were you watching?
TV sucks, let's have fun with it for a change.

Do the same with an hour or two of Fox News.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking "but they're not advertising!".

Like fuck they ain't.

Religion is an ad for the ultimate snake oil.
Eternal life.
And it's as pseudo-science fake as Extenz, and Enzyte, and John Edward.
Any religious program, especially one with greasy-haired, lizard-grinning evangelists, is an infomercial for this sham product called eternal life.
And what should tell you right off you have a sham product, is to receive this eternal life, you have to fucking die.
And no one ever comes back to give testimonials of it working.
So, it's exactly like they're selling you an empty box.
If this was a product from any other business outfit, they'd go out of business in a fucking week.
If a corporation sold an empty box with a false promise, they'd be blasted to bits with ridicule, media exposes, and huge blood-draining class-action lawsuits.
Yet, this isn't happening with religion.
That's SOME fucking sales pitch they've got!
But it is a sales pitch.
Treat it as such.
Blend it into the big pseudo-science sci-fi show made up of all the other commercials.
It's more amusing and wacky than Sci-Fi Channel these days.

And Fox News? Same thing.
They're a 24/7 infomercial for a political point of view.
And part of their bullshit, is shoveling fake patriotic crap.
And fake patriotism is an ad campaign for the nationalism cult.

Real patriotism is a feeling that lives in your heart, it comes from within.
When someone's externally bludgeoning you with these packaged platitudes, they're selling you something.
Usually a war.
And if they're selling it to you with bullshit, it's usually a crooked war.
A crooked war is a worse product than religion's empty box.
Crooked wars needlessly and foolishly kill people.
It's a worse product than cigarettes.
We have PSA's that go after smoking, we ought to have some against patriotism.
Don't look for it to happen.
Not on TV.
TV is owned.
Read books.

And there's the final stage, when all these games become tiresome, and lose their educational value, turn the fucking TV off.

Go read a fucking book.

I'll recommend some in an upcoming post.

Anyway, as I said at the outset, you tackle advertising by laughing at it, you tackle everything, because all bullshit ties to advertising.

The slogan rants all break down to patriotism, or superstition, and those break down to advertising.

Ah, but that's TV, how about life?

Well, first of all, know that a lot of yahoos got their ideas off of TV, so they're walking TVs.
If they're not a walking TV, then they're readers.
Readers typically aren't full of bullshit.
But given given the rampant illiteracy in this country, most people swallow the dopey fake little world that's fed to them, so they're full of shit.
Just like TV.
So, mentally play some of the commerical games when listening to their shit.
Imagine them with a big comic car salesman tie, and a televangelist pompadour, cuz they're selling some bullshit.

Or hell, play the notepad game with their shit.
Don't let anyone find the notepad though.
Until you blog about it.
*Evil grin*

Have fun with all this shit.
That defangs it.
Makes it fun and harmless.
Gotta laugh at it, or it fucking poisons you.

Life is too short, fight back.
Use your anti-virus software.
Or, more aptly, your ad-blocking software.