September 18, 2007
Dearth of advertising
Okay, been experiencing something a bit odd lately. I find that I have almost no contact with advertising anymore. People complain about being constantly bombarded with it, but I'm just not. I don't watch TV (not on TV anyways), I don't listen to the radio (except NPR occasionally), and I use AdBlock Plus, so I don't see online advertising. I don't get a hard-copy newspaper.
So right off the bat, most of the standard advertising outlets don't reach me. But I find that I'm also kind of blind to ads. I really couldn't tell you how may billboards there are on South Bend Ave., because I just don't know. Couldn't tell you where they are either. I just don't see 'em.
Though this is generally a pleasant thing, I'm starting to find that this can be a bit problematic, from time to time. Sometimes I actually do want to know who's having sale. Sometimes I actually do want to know who's recently released a new product, and what it costs. This doesn't generally wind up being a huge problem, as this is generally not that hard to find out, but it does require me to spend time on something that I wouldn't otherwise have had to do.
But there's also the fact that advertising seems to form a kind of common cultural currency. We don't necessarily watch the same television shows, but even people watching different channels on the same evening are likely to see the same ads. By not watching TV at all (or at least in a format that doesn't include ad space) this is something I wind up missing. Same with not going to the movies very often. I've absolutely no idea what's being released in the next six months. None. And last year, a student at a stand-up comedy night on campus made a joke about Head-On, which everyone thought was hilarious, but I didn't get.
How bizarre that one of the most reviled features of our modern media culture is perhaps one if its only common threads.
