Commercials have started to freak me out. There was a time when they were a mere irritation, but today they have turned into a real scare. They are everywhere, these commercials. They have hijacked every medium of communication known to mankind, be it the radio, the newspaper, the hoardings, the pamphlets, the snail mail, the television, the Internet...
Some tempt you to buy chocolates, while others goad you into buying toothpaste; some invite you to eat all the junk food you can, while others scare you into buying medical insurance; some sell sugar-free chewing gum, while others sell cholesterol-free cooking oil. So many cellular service-providers advertise so many schemes that you'll have a very hard time deciding on which one to stick with. Ever wonder what would be the result if you tried out all those anti-dandruff products on offer? How would your commode fare if you tried out all those toilet-cleaners being advertised? So many baby-care products are being advertised that your baby should have a grand-baby by the time you try them all out!
Anywhere we look, somebody is trying to sell us something. But they don't shut up even if we buy from them. They buy into our TV time and brainwash us four times in every half hour. They pay well-known celebrities to drive the message home to us; some unknown people have come to be known as celebrities since they started appearing in commercials. They have mastered the use of the Internet as an effective marketing medium...
What scares me the most about all this? The fact that these manufacturers and service-providers can and will go to any extent to sell their ware. The day is not far when they will go beyond the currently accessible media and learn to reach out on a more direct and more personal scale via brain-entrainment, telepathy, mass-hypnosis, dream-infiltration, and para-psychology. What then? We may switch off the television and shut down our computers, but how can we ever switch off our brains?
Some tempt you to buy chocolates, while others goad you into buying toothpaste; some invite you to eat all the junk food you can, while others scare you into buying medical insurance; some sell sugar-free chewing gum, while others sell cholesterol-free cooking oil. So many cellular service-providers advertise so many schemes that you'll have a very hard time deciding on which one to stick with. Ever wonder what would be the result if you tried out all those anti-dandruff products on offer? How would your commode fare if you tried out all those toilet-cleaners being advertised? So many baby-care products are being advertised that your baby should have a grand-baby by the time you try them all out!
Anywhere we look, somebody is trying to sell us something. But they don't shut up even if we buy from them. They buy into our TV time and brainwash us four times in every half hour. They pay well-known celebrities to drive the message home to us; some unknown people have come to be known as celebrities since they started appearing in commercials. They have mastered the use of the Internet as an effective marketing medium...
What scares me the most about all this? The fact that these manufacturers and service-providers can and will go to any extent to sell their ware. The day is not far when they will go beyond the currently accessible media and learn to reach out on a more direct and more personal scale via brain-entrainment, telepathy, mass-hypnosis, dream-infiltration, and para-psychology. What then? We may switch off the television and shut down our computers, but how can we ever switch off our brains?
No comments:
Post a Comment