social engineering,human conditioning and a general dumbing effect on our generation

[El Mamerro]

It's kinda hard to get across what I'm trying to say. In quantity, yes, without a doubt there is more advertising today than there was a long time ago. That's a fact. When I say pervasive I mean how much it infiltrates a person's life in terms of how many things that person is exposed to.

 

Back in the day people were exposed to MUCH less information and stimuli, but the little they got was incredibly influential in how these people led their lives. Posters, flyers, newspapers, these all existed back then and they all had massive amounts of advertising. The thing is, those few mediums and the influence they exerted over people back then are comparable in proportion to the influence being exerted by advertising today in the myriad of formats and mediums available. When you take into account the amount of overall external information available back then, and the overall external information available today, you'll see that the percentage of that information that would be classified as advertising is about the same in both.

 

 

Personally, I think a lot of advertising is fucked (and I work in advertising). However, I do not think that the evils being attributed to it in this thread are part of some secret conspiracy masterminded by some global conglomerate. I think it's more of a consequence of the nature of advertising rather than a set goal of the industry. This is an industry where in the end, the client rules, and clients are too busy trying to lure consumers away from their competitors to really come together and lay out such a plan. Overall, yes, they definitely do want to keep a consumer culture going, so that's a factor, but they play nice with each other much less than you'd expect.

 

Right now the advertising industry is undergoing some serious radical changes due to the change in lifestyle of the consumer itself, because a LOT of people are saying "fuck advertising" and they are now empowered with the ability to do something about it. Believe it or not, we as consumers have more power than you think. I think you're gonna see some changes in the next decade where advertising is going to be something you actually have to go look for, instead of advertising looking for you.

[El Mamerro]

Also, does anyone have those episodes in another format? I really want to see them but they take forever at home and I can't sit down and watch them at work where they download quickly. I'd love to put em on the ipod and take them home.

[lord_casek]

Re: social engineering,human conditioning and a general dumbing effect on our generat

 

i've been interested in social engineering since i was

a teenager. the uses for the computer savvy are

limitless.

 

one of my favorite references, and an old haunt is

http://www.searchlores.org

 

here's a link with lots of essays and information for

the masses.

 

http://searchlores.org/realicra/realicra.htm

 

also: neuro linguistic programming....i can't say enough

about this. i learned some important skills as a young

man while working for a telemarketing agency.

 

just heard about this http://www.mindcontrolinamerica.com

have yet to check into it much, but i've heard the guy

speak. very interesting. he's got credentials to back up

what he preaches.

 

i'm downloading that bbc program. after i watch it, i'll comment

some more.

[Soup BDC]

El Mamero, as far as the advertising industry changing, it has nothing to do with the power we have. In fact, this idea that if we have the money then we have the power is part of our conditioning explained in the videos.

 

That power is in fact our desire for consumerism. Ever since World War 2, big buisness changed our culture from a need culture, to a desire culture. Before world war 2, people bought only what they needed, and that was it. The advertising followed as such. Buy this car because it's reliable. Big Buisness feared that point when everyone had what they needed and would stop buying. Now as a desire culture, it's buy this car because it's badass, or it's sexy, or it's freedom. People buy things as extentions of their personalities, like a sports car/jacket/snowboard makes them a more complete person.

 

Before world war 2, cigarettes were taboo for women to smoke. Women saw them as something men did, a symbol of their male genitalia. So during a Parade in new york, a psychologist had several famous female models light up, then told newspapers to run the article calling them "Torches of freedom." So anyone who opposed women smoking would be opposing freedom.

 

Every time you see something on television that gives a product a sense of personality, is an invention of this era to help sell things since if you buy it that personality becomes apart of you.

 

You may think that a market after your money is useful, since it makes cool things suited to just what you always wanted. Well think about how much money you'd have if you lived the life of an heiristocrat, wearing hammydowns from generations ago, never buying anything except when you desperately needed something, like your one jacket caught on fire and it's winter.

 

This consumer mentality effects the way we vote for our presidents too. We're only interested in what things will personally cost us, the tax payer. Wellfare is almost entirely gone, homeless shelters are dissappearing. It something doesnt have shit to do with us we don't care to spare a dime.

[Larry Pubes]

el mamerro, thanks, good points. i also work in advertising, and agree with many of your points, including your sentiments that much advertising is fucked (i would again recommend to anyone to read some of the literature on how children are targetted). however, i would like to reiterate the book i mentioned earlier, for anyone seriously interested in how we got to this point of uncontrollable consumerism and need for product. it's quite a deep subject, and it's one of those subjects (i'm referring to corporate propaganda specifically, which ended up spinning off into the 'public relations' industry, which is run by the advertising industry and has subsequently cross pollinated) that has been, unbelievably, researched very little.

[El Mamerro]

Soup, I don't disagree with anything you said, but when I say we have the power to change the industry, I'm not talking about the money. It's technology.

 

Technology makes it possible for us to avoid commercials, and consumer behavior is shifting towards this trend. You may think we're all ultra brainwashed, but the fact is that people are starting to stand up and say "fuck advertising", and the effect is being felt. Hard. And the industry is scrambling to catch up.

 

I'm not pulling this out of my ass, this is a real fact that currently has the advertising industry shitting its pants.

 

 

It's also a sad fact that consumer culture has built up to a point where trying to abandon it can potentially cause economic cataclysm. It's a very tricky situation.

[Soup BDC]

Re: social engineering,human conditioning and a general dumbing effect on our generat

 

El Mamero,

 

Couple things. One, I don't think people ARE avoiding advertising. Sure on demand has fewer commercials, and tivo allows you to fast forward, but noone's turning off their TV's. We're all still plugged in, ready for the next broadcast. (It's fun to type like that, all matrix-like, and shit.)

 

Anyway, we're still all jacked into the corperations. Children visiting McDonnald land, VW's unleashing your 'fast', Geico insurance gives you a halarious 15 second comedy routine by switching to them.

[El Mamerro]

That's fine that you don't think people are avoiding it, but that doesn't make it any less true that it's happening. Tivo, on-demand, satellite radio, etc, is just the beginning.

 

We're still plugged in, but not watching ads as we used to. It's a fundamental monkey wrench in the advertising machine.

[lord_casek]

Re: social engineering,human conditioning and a general dumbing effect on our generat

 

If you're like me, you wonder a lot about how it is that we seem to be

collectively transforming ourselves from those lovable nattering nabobs of

negativism into nations of nitwits and dittoheads. After trading our

hours for a handful of dimes, most of us like to go home, kick back, relax

and watch some TV. Television has become the drug of choice among the

silent majority, although most do not see viewing the vidi- screen as an

addiction. Perhaps the silence of the working class and its perceived

acceptance of the dominant paradigm have a lot to do with the fact that

most of their political, moral and ethical convictions are transmitted to

them along with their culture via commodified, televised imagery. At

least, that seems to be the underlying theme of TEST CARD F: Television,

Mythinformation and Social Control.

 

"How can TV silence me?" , you say. "After all, I control it with my

Captain Picard like hand held decoder and channel changing remote, right?"

Right. A judicious use of the mute button is in your interest; but look

around you. Observe how it is that the electric eye peering out of that

rotten tube stays on for so many hours of your waking free time and that

of your friends, plus your kids'. Try turning it off for extended

periods and experience the anxiety of withdrawal; that nervous

anticipation surrounded by a quiet, unflickered environment. Think about

it. If the TV is doing most of the talking in your living room, bedroom

etc. then you probably aren't too close to planning, "the historic

mission of the working class" or really anything much of importance at all.

 

As the authors (who choose to remain anonymous) of TEST CARD F point out,

TV is owned to sell and like addictive drugs in general, this soma of our

brave new world has a high price, namely our heads. It is market share

which drives the owners of the television programs to put their trash in

your living spaces; for market share largely determines the price of the

airtime they sell to advertisers. Fear of losing this market share leads

to an homogenization of programming. The path struck out by capitalist

media competition leads directly to the flatlands of mediocrity. "The

pressure to maximize audiences and revenue results in the avoidance of

anything that might be contentious. Production and commission is based

instead on the familiar formats of what has previously successfully kept

us watching. Getting the bodies sat in front of the box for as long as

possible is what counts: QUALITY of attention is of little importance."

The immediacy of TV, its fast paced, fire like nature, keep us glued like

moths to the screen. Our brains on television put us, for all intents

and purposes, in a virtual land of the living dead. It's not just the

commodification of the electric spectacle which cheapens our

consciousness; the phenomenon of mental numbing appears to be deeply

embedded in the technology itself.

 

"The 'Mulholland' experiment in the early 70's wired ten kids to

electroencephalograph (EEG) machines (which measure brain wave activity)

and sat them down in front of their chosen favourite programmes. He

expected to see plenty of fast beta waves, which would indicate that they

were actively responding to something (as is produced when reading or

during conservation); instead all he could find were the slower alpha

waves of the kind found when a person is in a coma or put in a trance

where the subject is not interacting with the outside world at all."

More than providing us with an analysis which links the dumbing down of

the working class and its children by these electronic drug dealers, TEST

CARD F also hammers away at the notion, popular among a semi-conscious

left, that if it can somehow manipulate its collective mug in front of

the TV camera, it'll be able to sway an otherwise torpid proletariat to

vigorous anti-capitalist activity. Nothing could be further from the

truth, according to TEST CARD F's authors. When was the last time you

seized the moment after watching something on TV, short of breaking out

your credit card to help the Mobil Corporation sponsor "Masterpiece

Theatre" on the so-called Public Broadcasting System? To attempt to

create a show for the televendors is to fall into the trap of becoming

mere court jesters of capital as opposed to its grave diggers. Much of

the left wastes its time mired in schemes from community access

television, to parade monitoring at anti-war marches in vain attempts to

gain respectability and their own "market share". In reality, they

become more fertilizer for the latest spin on the opiate of the people.

Instead of being concerned about how to get on television and then going

home to watch to see whether one has made the 11 o'clock newscasts, the

authors suggest that it would be more effective to engage in the class

struggle any which way you can without regard to how or even whether it

will play in the televised images being beamed to the comatose of Peoria.

As the authors point out, "All news coverage is encoded to enforce the

myth that we live in a society where the bond that unites the worker and

the boss is an (sic) national economic interest, stronger than the divide

between labour and capital." Thus, the working class is

reduced to the wanking class in front of the boob-tube.

 

Most of what anybody sees on TV is soon forgotten anyway; in fact,

practically as soon as the next image is televised for consumption. It's

form over content here, image over reality. The result of spending so

much of our time in TV's embrace is not a persistence of memory; but rather

a vacant stare and at "best" the active repetition of political choices

historically proven to have been mistakes e.g. voting for the major

parties, doing nothing, cynically doing nothing and so forth and so on.

 

Low Alpha Waves: Causes: Radiant Light

"While watching television, the brain appears to slow to a halt, registering low alpha wave readings on the EEG. This is caused by the radiant light produced by cathode ray technology [CRT, LCDs also?] within the television set [increases serotonin levels?]. Even if you're reading text on a television screen the brain registers low levels of activity. Once again, regardless of the content being presented, television essentially turns off your nervous system."

http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/5jcl/5JCL59.htm

[Larry Pubes]

i don't have tivo or any of these other things. so 'consumers' are still consuming (sidenote hmm), but through technology that allows some sort of advert filtering? i'm assuming this only removes commercial breaks, but does not filter product placement and does nothing on a larger scale in terms of sponsorship or how programs are now branded, marketed and cross-pollinated with other brands(which by now is everything from softdrinks, particular lifestyles, and even actual human beings(think martha stewart)). how are we deciphering, then sidestepping such deep rooted messages that in so many cases are so successful that they become apart of peoples lives on a cultural level?

[Larry Pubes]

also it's interesting that branding has not been mentioned yet. el mamerro, would you not say the industry has already trumped your assertions with how effective and widespread branding has become? it's at a point now where branding is the industry's stealth cloak.

[El Mamerro]

All those things you mentioned, although they've been around for some time, are only beginning to take off as more mainstream solutions... precisely because traditional advertising's effect is waning. Right now the industry is in a scramble to find how the hell to reach the consumer, and the most logical options are to somehow infiltrate existing program content that the consumer cannot avoid. Personally, although this sounds like a simple way to patch things up, I'm sure that in time it won't prove as succesful. It's incredibly hard and expensive to deliver an effective message through product placement. The only solid benefit to it is that it's very targeted, but the things you can say about a product are very limited. It's a temporary solution to a much broader problem.

 

To survive, advertisers will have to produce content that people want to look at and spend time with, period. They will have to stop bombarding everyone on Earth with global campaigns and instead send incredibly targeted messages to very narrow markets, which will drastically cut back on a great deal of the nonsense you see every day. It's getting way too expensive reaching people. Eventually the people will have to reach you, and I can only see this as a good thing.

 

As for branding, I don't necessarily see how that trumps any of my assertions. Branding has been around for ages, whereas I'm talking about the industry shift that's happening right now. Branding is gonna be one of the toughest things to carry over the bump, especially for new companies. I can't really tell how exactly it'll go through, but I'd say a good example of what we'll be seeing is more stuff like BMW Films. Just pure branded entertainment that in a very general sense adheres to the company's intended image (funny, sophisticated, etc.).

[The Man with the Answers]

I don't agree with the people who think TV is bad. its enetertainment...so what? I'm well read and welle ducated, but if I;m tired i'd rather lay on my couch and what a re-run of law and order that sit in silence 'contemplating" or listening to music or reading or drawing etc etc...

 

 

 

(edit* but not a good typer)

[Dawood]

tell-a-lie-vision is still a whore whether you think so or not. You may want to lunch out on the couch afrter a hard day and that's your prerogative but the messages television sends

out are generally non productive and geared toward nothing but enslaving you to it's rotten

agenda. (i know I'm dramatically generalising it) But, if you don't have kids. then it would be easy to slip by you why the television is a one eyed liar seducing the optical brain stem.

 

television...tell-a-lie-vision...a schizm...negative realizm - krs one

[Soup BDC]

Hey El Mamero, since we both want the same things, I'm gonna keep the banter between what you believe and what i believe to a minimum. I say we're not avoiding advertising and you just cant see how bad it is. You say there's a movement that we are, but we both want to see consumerism minimized... well maybe not. Own dunks? Any clothing associated with pop culture? I dont, or i try not to.

 

Here's my reasons why I dont think we can or will avoid advertising any time soon.

 

- Luxury items are no longer a class thing. The wealthy are no longer only those that buy luxury items. Tons of ghetto-ass people want/need nice clothes, and would rather dress their kids nice than eat.

 

- On television, advertising isn't restricted to commercials, or even product placement. Any time someone on tv talks about a product beyond it's regular functions, that's advertising. The dukes of hazard sold Dodge Chargers. Music videos sell clothing, cars, liquor, weed. Sidenote, music videos have ruined hip hop. Look back at the mid-80's, kids just wore teeshirts, sweatshirts, and jeans and they were down with hip hop just for their love of the movement. Now to be down you almost have to buy into it. Those kids are walking talking corperate advertisements. They're totally fucking brainwashed.

[lord_casek]

Re: social engineering,human conditioning and a general dumbing effect on our generat

 

tell-a-lie-vision is still a whore whether you think so or not. You may want to lunch out on the couch afrter a hard day and that's your prerogative but the messages television sends

out are generally non productive and geared toward nothing but enslaving you to it's rotten

agenda. (i know I'm dramatically generalising it) But, if you don't have kids. then it would be easy to slip by you why the television is a one eyed liar seducing the optical brain stem.

 

television...tell-a-lie-vision...a schizm...negative realizm - krs one

 

if you read what i osted about televisions putting out alpha

waves (same as brain puts out while in deep hypnotic trance

or when we're in deep REM sleep....you'd know that we are in

very very suggestive states while 'watching'.

 

that is the way 'they' want it.

[El Mamerro]

Oh, I don't think we can or will avoid advertising. All I'm saying is that these days you have much more of a say in what you want or don't want to watch. And that the industry will have to adapt to this fact. Advertising will forever remain a necessary evil in the society we have built, and you will never, ever see it go away.

 

In a country of over 250 million people, not everybody can be a blacksmith or a carpenter or a cook or other "strictly necessary" jobs.

[El Mamerro]

Oh, and I hate dunks.

[Dawood]

Re: social engineering,human conditioning and a general dumbing effect on our generat

 

Observe how it is that the electric eye peering out of that

rotten tube stays on for so many hours of your waking free time and that

of your friends, plus your kids'. Try turning it off for extended

periods and experience the anxiety of withdrawal; that nervous

anticipation surrounded by a quiet, unflickered environment. Think about

it. If the TV is doing most of the talking in your living room, bedroom

etc. then you probably aren't too close to planning, "the historic

mission of the working class" or really anything much of importance at all.

 

 

this is exactly my point about television, I couldn't have said it better.

 

I told this lady one time that we don't own a TV and that the majority of

what my kids do at home is read, excercise and play and study. She actually looked at me like I had 10 heads and said " How can you do that that to your kids"??

I just laughed and siad "because I'm eeeeeeeeevil"!

 

I can't believe how sheepish we've become.

[lord_casek]

yeah, people look at others without these idiot boxes and freak the fuck out.

 

i love talk radio.

 

there ya go.

[tabloid-]

this thread is making me want to listen to black flag.

[lord_casek]

jello biafra.

[The Man with the Answers]

Re: social engineering,human conditioning and a general dumbing effect on our generat

 

this is exactly my point about television, I couldn't have said it better.

 

I told this lady one time that we don't own a TV and that the majority of

what my kids do at home is read, excercise and play and study. She actually looked at me like I had 10 heads and said " How can you do that that to your kids"??

I just laughed and siad "because I'm eeeeeeeeevil"!

 

I can't believe how sheepish we've become.

 

 

this is what i don't get, esp from a bunch of graf artists...tv is done by artists too... marketeers, the dudes who do the 3-d, animation, directors, actors, screenwriters, set designers....yes they are paid by corporations to do the work, but when haven't artists not been paid by the elite? Michealangelo, a fag, got paid by the Catholic Church to do the Sistine... dawood, you have a painting biz, are you against marketting your biz? in all honesty, would'nt it be awesome if adidas paid you to do a billboard or ad campaign? You wouldn't do it? Fuck that...

 

seriously, teaching your kids not to watch tv is bad... they're missing out on popular culture....cultural ignorance is the worse... I've met so many folks in school who are so much "smarter" than me yet never heard of Law and Order, let alone knew that Jerry Orbach was a famous vaudville performer, song and dance man back in the 40s and 50s...

 

 

I understand all the bullshit about corporations and I agree, but at the same time, would the flourishing of culture we have in the world today be possible w/o it?

 

 

As artists, it is our resondsibility to do our work... (edit* to be corny yet quote malcolm/scott la rock: "by any means neccesary", lol)

[Dawood]

Of course I would paint an Adidas billboard.... All day. I don't disagree with people wearing shoes. I do stuff like that all day, but If someone called me from a liquor store (me being muslim and all) I wouldnt do it.

I don't really disagree with TV because all of the corporate advertising blah, blah, blah. I don't own a TV because it is 99% trash and whatever there is good on it, I can download and watch on my PC.

And as for my kids missing out on pop culture, pssssssshhst...I'm sure they can make it in this world without Kevin Federline and Britney spears. I , personally have prioraties. I have an agenda, a mission, so to speak. Being a religious person ,I make a conscious effort not to be extreme, to be moderate and to take the "middle path" in issues. I also look at everything according to the harm and benefit. I'm responsible for the care of my children and I'll be held accountable for it too. If I feed them mental junkfood then, I can't expect anything else, but for their intellectual arteries to get clogged (like most people). I (god willing) won't be responsible for clogging up anyones intellect with that video pork theyre showing everyone.

[lord_casek]

i agree that tv is 99% trash, but there are benefits. pbs, history channel, etc. all the good things about tv are ignored these days. people let tv's raise their children.

 

personally, i think tv can be great, but i damn sure wouldn't follow the trend of letting tv raise my kids. and fuck barney and any other purple dinosaurs. that can't be good.

 

but remember sesame street? that shit taught all kinds of kids how to count and taught them that sharing is good, etc. good life lessons. those people put alot of time into making sure that show is a learning experience.

 

as for the rest: i have neighbors that are into american idol and lifetime movies. complete rednecks. i mentioned alex haley the other day and they looked at me like "whuuuu???" they have no idea who he is. i didn't explain, although i did mention that he's the author of 'roots' (they didn't knwo what that was, either)

 

that is a good example of the bad tv does to peoples brains.

 

a good example of the good it does: i learned about structural integrity of bridges the other day.

[Dawood]

exactly, there is some good there, but the bad outweighs the good by far and I have 4 kids, so It would be difficult for me being at work all day to be able to check on what they are watching, so I prefer to let them read "roots" by Alex haley firstly and then look at a national geographic video about something educational secondly. I don't own a TV because it's like a vortex, man. It will suck you in for hours and you havent accomplished anything, but with the computer you can be working, checking email and 12 oz., IMing your mother, doing reasearch, watching a video clip, and printing out something for tomorrow all at the same time..... and oh yeah....

 

 

 

fuck barney

[lord_casek]

haha too true.

 

do you ever ask you kids questions about stuff they read?

maybe throw in morals and whatnot?

 

how many people sit down to dinner with their kids anymore?

at a table?

(not in front of a tv)

 

i wonder what the statistics are on that?

 

dawood: i found some good imax films on torrentspy. rainforest, space, etc etc.

really cool stuff.

[Dawood]

Yes, definately, Actually, I read with them.

and as for eating...In muslim culture it's a strange thing to sit down and eat by yourself. If you do that it's looked at as weird like someone having a conversation with themself on a crowded train. You just don't do it unless youre alone or crazy.

When we eat, we sit down on the floor around a table cloth and we all eat off the same plate (like a big platter of food) Except for the small children have their own little plates because the way they eat is just plain disgusting. They'll chew something a few times until they realize they don't like it and then plop it down into a pile of spaghetti, so I say let them plop it on top of their own spaghetti, not mine. but, yeah, eating in my house has a whole set of etiquettes that go along with it. I teach my kids not to reach over the plate to get food on the other side, but to eat the closest part to them. We try to make a meal a whole social experience instead of just woofing down a burger and being done with it. My wife is a good cook , too, so it works out well.

American Life these days is so different than it used to be, I'm an old fashioned type, I guess that's why I'm muslim, I like things simple and wholesome. fresh fruit dipped in pure sugar....not candy. Everything is so packaged now, I have a love/ hate relationship with the packaging and sale of american culture. I love the design aspect of it all, the ideas, the new styles and concepts, but I hate the overall effect it has on us and the people it is turning us all into.

[jcramair1]

This is kind of topic Relm but there have been some quotes with regard to branding, marketing and advertising. I remember in 1992 I was sitting in McDonalds on the Lynnway and looking at a Truck that was on top of a rood and then the building was "West Lynn Creamery" now Garelick Farms. Anyway I remeber these cats were like "You see the guy in the truck he get's paid to situp there all day in that truck". I later found out that "My boy Dave and J.R. were playing a joke on a Freshman becuase they were seniors at the time. From that point forward I "considered my slogan for graf "Silent but Deadly". Good to see your doing well man!

 

~JJ~

[lord_casek]

dawood: thanks for taking some time to let me pick your brain about that.

back to discussion:

 

ross jeffries...major nlp master. a.k.a-mind rapist, a.k.a seductionist. (same thing, right?)

check him out. his tech is that of a master ninja. he looks like a douchebag, though.