Advertising

Adverts are everywhere. Some think they do not have an effect, however they would not be everywhere if they didn't! Here is a quick reminder of what advertising is doing to all of us:

• Increasing consumption - we are being repeatedly told to mindlessly consume at a time of ecological crisis were need to wind back consumption.
• Encouraging materialistic value sets that measure our worth by the amount of expensive items we own — these value sets lower happiness, distract everyone from each other and obfuscate higher values which gives real satisfaction in life.
• Our true desires for greater social connection, enhanced freedom, quality leisure time, satisfying sexual relationships etc. are appealed to by the ridiculous claim that some magical product can deliver these things — this diverts attention from the political achievements that can actually satisfy our social desires: equal political power, the end of exploitation, less work, more free time etc.
• We are made to feel inadequate', compared to cultural ideals' that are mostly impossible and not necessarily desirable, contributing to a range of mental health problems.
• An effect of constantly being sold something is an inherent distrust of the motives of others ('they only smile so they can rob you'), and we begin to accept we should only look after ourselves just like everyone else is — adding to political cynicism and disengagement.
• We are made to feel irrelevant in our cities, and inferior in a 'culture' that we have no influence over — instead a spectacular lifestyle is presented above us, one that we can never really achieve, but must continuously chase after through an ever-escalating series of purchases.
• The overwhelming mass of image-based consumerist-propaganda that normalises and reinforces all the problematic attitudes (sexist, racist, homophobic, ableist, classist, transphobic, list goes on...) that it should be our priority to overcome.

Psychological Tricks

There are a variety of tricks the advertising industry rely on to increase consumer demand. These human hacks tend to take advantage of ancient human heuristics, most common of which include: