Nothing constructive to add, I just want to complain: I was at the airport recently picking up my bags from baggage claim, and there were screens all over the place, and yet you had to hunt around for information about where your bags were going to be because all these screens were just showing ads.
What got me was a the military. I’m anti-imperialism/colonialism now, but when I was younger, I thought America was #1 and really wanted to serve my country (and get access to healthcare and college, as I was very poor). So I joined the military. It didn’t work out and the released me before I finished basic. But while I was there, there was almost nothing in the way of ads. Pro-military propaganda, obviously, but almost nothing from a corporation. I did get to stare out over the trees and fence at the M of McDonalds, but that was about it. For 2 months, I didn’t constantly have ads shoved in my face. But the second I set foot outside of that base, I was bombarded with advertisements. It made me feel so gross and I’ve hated ads since. True, they still work on me sometimes. I’m not dissecting every ad that comes my way because that is impossible. But I do try to pay attention and ask what they want from me and take a little pleasure in denying them.
When you get a break from it it's really shocking when you encounter it again. For me it was when I stopped watching TV for a long time. Then I visited my parents and we were watching something with a ton of ads and I just thought this is backwards they should be paying us to watch this. No matter how much it costs if there are that many commercial breaks they should be paying you to watch it.
Not sure if you’ve mentioned this in another video or anything, but Naomi Klein’s 1999 book No Logo remains the bible on the harmful, wide-reaching impacts of branding. I feel like, for multiple generations of readers, that has been the thing that turned them on to the anti-consumerist/anti-advertising movement; I know it was for me!
Really appreciate this one! On the topic of your "Story Time" chapter, I have become increasingly aware of how pervasive ads have become, specifically ones that should not be shown to children. Horror movie season (Jan-Feb/Sep/Oct) is an example where nightmare inducing shock is plastered all over, and these poor kids have few places to hide. I hate it...
Hey, handsome. Thank you for the video. Fabulous, as usual. I especially love the chill music. I was worried the animated characters weren't there, so I was happy to see them at the end.
Ads really trigger my PDA, I hate hate HATE being told to buy something by an ad. Ads quite literally have the opposite effect on me. I have several ad blockers on all my devices, and I either mute ads if I come across them in the wild or I physically turn away from them. I stopped watching TV because of this, now all I watch is on UA-cam
You will love Carefree Wandering, the UA-cam channel of Prof. Hans-Georg Moeller. His video series on media theory is the most relevant to your interests. Watching his entire catalog was like doing an introductory course to critical philosophy and media theory. He taught me things I can't unsee, and I suspect you'll enjoy it for precisely that reason.
this makes me want to look at the syllabus for the lass I took on advertising in uni… right now I default to UA-cam “deinfluencers” like Kimberley Clark and more recently Shawna Ripari… But Raymond Williams’ ”Advertising: The Magic System”Horkheimer and Adorno’s theories of the culture industry, Bourdieu’s articulation of conspicuous consumption in “Distinction” etc feed something for me that “content” does not. An adjacent academic discipline that I find especially interesting is political economy, especially the work of Eileen Meehan.
So I was listening to WKHB the other day when the station went to comercial "break". Something I couldn't help but notice was that the ads wheren't ultra vomit turbo cringe. Like, they where just inconveniant. So... Listen to more AM radio I guess?
I'll make a video on my strange nothings account responding to this video, but let me do some research over the weekend first about what I want to say. I'll write an essay, but I want to respond to this.
so many great resources are being posted in the comments, i would love if there was a document collecting all such great methods for research & reading materials + educational things to watch. i don't have the energy to make one right now as it's almost midnight here after another exhausting day at my retail job i can barely handle as a person with rapidly increasingly worsening disabilities as well as probably going to become homeless soon due to my abusive parents wanting to kick out me & my disabled sister, again. things are so scary out here. the obsession with buying buying buying over the cost of human life might take me & my sister out before the year is over if we do become houseless again. no place we can afford, no programs to help us, no jobs we can do & also be paid enough to live. this country doesn't want us to be alive & we can feel it pressing on our necks more & more. i hope people becoming more aware of the evils of advertisements & capitalism will reduce other people from getting consumed by capitalism, but i fear it's too late, at least for me, to make it out alive. can't afford a therapist so i'm sorry for anyone who reads this. be kind, be safe, good night.
Today I was waiting in the doctors office, and I realized that it wasn’t just like a News TV channel or something like that playing on the obnoxiously loud TV in the corner, but I was in there long enough to realize it was just a loop of ads for three different brand name Prescriptions.
16:20 - "On the one hand, I do agree that basically every other social movement is fundamentally more important than anti-consumerism." Except anti-consumerism is intrinsically linked with human rights and other social movements. Hyper-consumerism drives sweatshops, horrific mining practices, excess carbon emissions, forced prison labor - these all affect the marginalized for the material comfort of the global north.
Books are cool too, but my parents dunking on every single ad with me during commercial breaks worked way better than if they sat me down and lectured me on theory. Nothing teaches you more about marketing ideology than watching a bunch of ads until you see the dorks in the brainstorming room trying to come up with the idea behind them
I’ve worked in Marketing and Advertising for the past 9 years as an art director, illustrator, and design lead. I agree with what you’re saying. This career path was a fallback from a career as an illustrator. If you want to understand the tools of communication and their impact, read Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman who are media theorists. If you ever want an insider look, I’d be happy to collab with you.
My aunt groomed me from a young age to be good at sales at her flea market booth from which she sold Avon in the late 90s. I got into marketing in the early 2000s and was great, as long as I believed in what I was selling. I quickly learned that I can't sell junk to people that don't need it. Fiber Optic Internet was the last product I did street-team marketing on, before enlisting in the military so I could go to college instead.
Another resource - The Century of the Self. It's an award-winning miniseries that's posted on UA-cam by its creator Adam Curtis, which documents the discovery and application of psychology into business (public relations, marketing) and politics throughout the 20th Century, giving countless concrete examples of how the public has been manipulated using these tools.
There's another documentary made by the same guy, Adam Curtis, called "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace", which is also equally great, if not, better and touches on similar topics but with more focus on how technology has been harnessed to achieve the same.
Something that's helped me in recent weeks is a little post-it note on my monitor, which says "do not buy anything because of an ad." If I've run out of toothpaste, sure, I can buy more. If my socks have holes in them, yes, I can buy new ones. But if I see a cOoL nEw ThInG in an ad (or a marketing email), I am simply not allowed to buy it. This has shown me just how much my own spending habits have been dictated by advertisement, rather than genuine need or utility. Most importantly, it has helped me be a hell of a lot less mindless and to snap out of it BEFORE I hit the "complete order" button.
I think anti-consumerism is sort of relevant to other social movements in the sense that it is about pure propaganda and accepted norms in society. So I think being aware of this stuff does make you more aware of the propaganda and the powerful playing on 'this is normal' with regard to more pressing life-or-death issues.
There is another side of the advertising ecosystem that is worth exploring: the tech industry who harvests people's data and sells it to advertisers. I would love to see a video on tech's involvement here. Some examples include social media, payment companies (like Square) that give you store/restaurant points in exchange for your purchasing info, data collection from cars and IoT, etc.
I'm throwin this out there before I watch the video, because I doubt it'll come up on your list. A web series that hooked me into anti-marketing in the gaming sphere was Jim Sterling. Their series back on Escapist Magazine in 2010 or so, called The Jimquisition, was the only thing I ever saw talking consistently and critically about consumer protection issues in the gaming world. They covered the progression of games to "Live Services," the growing ubiquity of microtransaction stores and obscuring currencies, and a ton of other great topics. I'm glad I watched them back then, because it led me in a philosophical direction that I'm proud of today.
The Jimquisition has been running independently for years, on James Stephanie's UA-cam channel! It still covers much the same topics of consumer protection and abusive industry practice. I don't watch it regularly anymore as frankly it gets a bit repetitive and tiring... the industry just doesn't change. Still, I think just about anyone could benefit from being introduced to James' work, new or old.
Oh wow YESSS the Jimquisition totally opened my mind and eyes to look out for this very thing, not just in the games industry but beyond. Haven’t thought about them in years!
To protect yourself against advertising is largely a technical problem. It's uninstalling chrome and installing an ad blocker on Firefox. It's using revanced to remove ads out of your favorite apps. It's manually going and hitting "unsubscribe" on every junk marketing mail that comes without your consent when you sign up for any account. It's disabling most tracking in windows with scripts and settings. Real die-hards can go the full Linux and Pi-hole route. But this is admittedly only something afforded to people with the education and time to do so. In your example, children are defenseless, as they lack the technological literacy to protect themselves. Again, it doesn't protect you from everything, but you cant just print a million flyers the same way you can duplicate a million banner ads. Physical things dont scale. On a side note, I would say that marketing enforces itself so far is it implies that the companies who can afford it are legitimate enough - or legitimate in enough ways - that purchasing their product isn't a risk. It may be provably unethical, but it isnt a risk. "Nobody ever got fired for buying ibm" just like nobody ever pissed off a car full of people by suggesting mcdonalds, even if there are objectively better alternatives to both.
Have you read Advertising S#!ts In Your Head? It's this great little book full of art, essays, manifestos and how-to's from guerilla ad-swappers. It focuses on marketing in the shared physical realm and works that satirize the ads they replace or erase them entirely in favor of beautifying common spaces. As much an indispensable resource as it is a perfect bit of propaganda for the unsuspecting guest-bathroom reader to stumble upon, imo
I despise advertising and everything it entails. I can respect the effort of the editors, actors, cinematographers, etc but i will never not hate the concept. Just thinking of the amount of waste that goes into producing things like commercials, billboards, what have you makes me so angry. I skip all ads i can and mute the ones that cant. I dont need a reminder that walmart still exists, im american
@Broken_robot1986 I think there's a pretty obvious gap between getting people's attention for a local event and a multi-billion dollar corporation blasting ads at you from all angles. Like a local furniture store making a cheesy commercial isn't really harming anyone, but I don't need a reminder that coca-cola exists, y'know?
the amount of brainpower that goes into marketing campaigns is what I find particularly insidious. these are smart people. we could be using their intelligence in so many different sectors that actually serve public need/wellbeing rather than the profit motive
One of my radicalization moments was also related to conventions. I realized I was spending hundreds of dollars... to go shop and buy stuff. I was dealing with a paywall to pay for stuff. Got me to start paying a lot more attention.
Yep, that's why I hate them unless they have actual things to do. Whether that be cosplaying (not my bag) or real events (PAX Unplugged, playing games etc), I only care about cons that have things to do that aren't spending loads of cash for useless junk.
I agree about 'They Live." I think watching it closer to when the time when it was realeased would make it feel more impactful as the access people had to media in general was so comparably small in quantity vesus today, let alone media with that specific type of rhetoric. But I think today, now that marketing has evolved passed the more passive and general billboard/tv ad into its modern day form where advertising is even more psychological and its methods are hyper specific to each person. In short, marketing wasn't yet industry which actively spies on every single thing you do on the personal level, which I think is why 'We Live' can feel more rhetorically hallow by today's standards.
Yeah, the problems this guy (and people lime him) has with They Live (and by extension, Bill Hicks and George Carlin, heard the same complaints about them) are due to time, not anything inherently wrong with their content itself. Both of these comedians and They Live were incendiary at their heyday because it was FRESH and novel.
seconding this. edit: I‘ve also found Adorno and Horkheimer‘s concept of culture industry to be something that repeatedly comes to mind when navigating consumerist culture.
Tbh, more effective than any book or movie is looking at advertising you see around you and asking "what is this trying to get me to think?" and then talking to friends and family about it. You could probably make it a game with your kids, if you've got any; it would certain help them get good critical thinking skills.
That is a really good idea. Making a game about that with kids legitimately sounds like a brilliant way to build critical thinking skills (and I say this as someone who studied early childhood education in college)
Other resources: The Idler Magazine Adbusters What would Jesus Buy/ Rev, Billy and the Stop shopping choir Kimberly Clarks Miniseries "how to stop shopping in 5 easy steps" most of Daniel Millers academic work on consumerism
Is academic marketing research really the most powerful resource? Of the handful of marketing professionals I watch on youtube (e.g. Atrioc, fmr. head of global marketing for Nvidia) and know IRL, they largely ignore academic research and see it at very disconnected from actual marketing practice. As you may know, academic empirical marketing research is facing down a bad replication crisis right now. More often I hear that trade journals and trade databases are more powerful for understanding the marketing world than academic marketing research. There is overlap between the 2, but it’s moderate at most. What do you think?
Chomsky is not a great person. Often he embraces the notion of an enemy of an enemy being a friend, which is just... Dumb. His thoughts on many modern conflicts are just "merica is bad, so let's side with anyone else". And that way he sometimes finds himself agreeing with people, you should never agree with under no circumstances. And I'm saying that as a person who lives under one of the regimes he's heavily cheering for. And that's not a good regime by any measure even compared to 'murica, so I'm a little skeptical of his work. Btw, his linguistics stuff is rather questionable, so it's my other problem with promoting him
I’m a marketer and I love this so much. From my perspective, it’s a discipline that can be used for good (connecting people with a genuine problem with the best solution for them), but marketing has turned into such an exploitative, manipulative practice that has led to an explosion of harmful consumerism. I fully support people learning more about how they’re manipulated so they can better resist and even push back against it. I also really, really despise advertising. It’s the worst practice in marketing and I don’t do it or recommend it.
I'm mostly commenting to boost your algorithm and get your thoughts in front of more people. But I also want to say that I really appreciate your videos! You put into words a vague feeling I've had for years but couldn't articulate to others. Please keep up the good work!
My moment was watching Fight Club as a kid. And, some real-world experiences when I was…5 I guess? Example: My grandparents made a sled out of a VW hood, with CARPET and handles in it. I originally get made fun of because I don’t have the stuff everyone else has, but after less than an hour, everyone is helping with this one because it’s safer and went straight,, moves faster because of the weight, lets 4 people on it, and it was warm.
i've been watching ted lasso lately, and the (misattributed) quote of "be curious, not judgemental" really rings true here, after the other kids realized there's nothing wrong with you having something different than them. thanks for the cute story :)
As someone who loves technology, but hates the consumerism and corporate fanboyism often associated with the culture, Cory Doctorow is a breath of fresh air.
Enshittification is tbh one of the most important theories of our time. Saw him speak on it a few months ago and it was a fantastic deconstruction not just of the problems but the solutions as well. Neat dude!
I don't have any recommendations for this actual topic, but I'm reading The Elements of Rhetoric (How to Write and Speak Clearly and Persuasively [A Guide for Students, Teachers, Politicians, and Preachers]) by Ryan N.S. Topping, and it seems kinda adjacently related. Anyway, thanks for another informative video!
The biggest anti-marketing ppl I know are my colleagues in advertising. lol, the pipeline from advertising to leftist is real. Some of the philosophy tube guys were in marketing at one point and also the fishbowl discourse is always shitting on marketing and capitalism. It really is an experience of seeing how the sausage is made and radicalization.
Thanks for this video. I've been working in marketing for 5 years now and the more I do it the better I've gotten at noticing marketing when it's hiding. I finally got out of cell phone cases and got into tourism SEO thinking travel would be less evil... Not exactly. My anti-martketing tip is the library. Often libraries have access to large databases of research like jstor so if your not a student and looking to do research got the library. Also loved the Pokemon Go reference, one of my favorite games because it manipulates me to run longer.
As someone who worked in marketing for years, it's not an ethical field. When you're pushing products at people who don't need them and can't afford them, you're a part of the problem. You're helping fill the wallets of people who have more money than they will ever spend, at the cost of people who are often just getting by.
it’s not that surprising that the advertisers make their plans known thru research journals that are publicly available; they understand that hardly anyone 1. looks at them 2. cares, & 3. ultimately, the knowledge that you are being manipulated doesn’t make the manipulation less affective (in many cases certain types of manipulation are MORE effective when the subject knows they are being manipulated)
there's nothing nefarious about it on the researchers' end. that's just how academic publishing works. it sucks and literally everybody i've ever talked to in academia agrees that it sucks. unfortunately it's a non-trivial problem to solve. the current publishing system works well enough that nobody really has a strong incentive to change things. on the flip side the publishers have a strong incentive to keep things as they are.
No Logo by Naomi Klein really opened my eyes to the schemes of marketing (especially clothing brands like NIKE and the shift to produce overseas) in the 90s/ 2000s I think. And how market researches used to try to go undercover and get with popular groups of teens to market to them. I highly recommend!
I recommend you check out Caps Lock by Ruben Pater. The sub title is "How Capitalism Took Hold of Graphic Design, and how to Escape from It". While not marketing specific the content is still relevant.
The best books I've ever read on marketing is a trilogy published around 2000 by Julie B. Schor: The Overworked America (why the pace of work has gotten so much more intense despite how much efficiency and comfort there is in modern life), The Overspent American (why do we keep buying stuff and why does it never stop? Why are we never truly happy through purchases and how has our culture evolved to put us in this position?) and, my favorite, Born to Buy (marketing to children, industry practices, and the ethics of what kids really want). They're a little bit dated (mostly because the smartphone world has changed so much in these fields) but they are still very helpful and I highly, highly recommend them to anyone wanting to learn more about this subject.
The Overworked American by J. Schor has some great thought on marketing and consumerism. The main theme is how Americans have lost leasure time to work but it describes how consumerism plays into that.
I’m 23 , graduated may 2023 with a business marketing degree , been working for a year in marketing now & I am so anti marketing. Studying a course called consumer analysis really turned me off , now that I’m actually in the work force ….i was on the right path lmfao. It’s a cool field but damn shit sucks
Great video! Ngl, I'm glad you specificed your intent with this channel, when I first got reccomended it, I was a bit afraid it would be one of those "redpill society man" kind of "now that youre aware of society's problems, thats it, job done, you get to feel smug and superior to those who dont have access to the same resources you do" kind of channels. But I'm pleasantly surprised! I honestly think its such a shame genuine good communities like encourging each other to buy less and interact with what we have access to more is so often highjacked by people who act like consumerism is the fault of greedy working class people who dont have self discipline, instead of like... companies taking advantage of normal human psychology.
Thank you for keeping in "It's Cyndaquil time!" I needed that laugh in these trying times. Wonderful video as always, I can't wait to dig into these resources.
I need to give Chomsky a listen I think. Your comments on the part about Women and the Myth of Consumerism are spot on. I've observed the "only I can see through the guise of marketing" a lot over the last few years. It's a sucky attitude.
Great video, i liked all of the things you mentioned, and i'm a big fan of your approach and the tone of the videos. i'm not particularly activist-y bc honestly i don't like the tone of many activists (maybe the loudest), maybe they've learned from advertising lol. it seems like adjacent discourse is very polarized either by obsession to mobilize to the point of performance (empty activism, using links to "save Gaza" as almost punchline) or the opposite, what you said about this patronizing tone that assumes a mindless sheep where only the elite break out. I've some suggestions that i'd like specifically you to do (sorry if it sounds aggresive, don't do them if you don't want/can't prioritize those, i meant that i'm interested in your take in particular, as opposed to these being topics that i feel like i have a good nose for if i were to attempt to do them myself): - follow up vid on the papers thing: i'm curious on which papers you've found most revealing, but from the first set of papers you mention, the industry ones where ppl "tell on themselves" for lack of a better word. if for some reason it's not legal or w/e to show the papers on video, just mentioning them and a couple points from them that you thought - you interviewing people: two kinds of people: the first is some researcher from marketing, one of those industry ppl who tells on themselves lol. some kinda neuroscience in marketing person or something. I think you would ask good questions, and i think that even if your tone is anti marketing, it's not clickbaity etc so i think someone could be willing to be the "pro marketing" voice in some interview. and the second kind would be some person who is "antimarketing" now but bc they've been on the other side. i feel like this is an easier yes and also that it is the video that could be more popular (bc of possible titles etc) but i also feel like it's harder to get the initial lead, plus it's probably a less insightful and more circlejerky conversation
I havent watched it but there is a UA-cam video of a presentation on marketing micro transactions in video games called "lets go whaling" which describes how developers can form the addiction
This isn't really marketing-specific, but for me "Propaganda" by Edward Bernays really illuminated the overlap between PR, political propaganda, and marketing techniques. It's like 160 pages, and was published in 1928. But it doesn't feel dated. Its age, instead, makes it feel almost fresh, because Bernays describes the methodology of spin in a way that would come off as self-incriminating today. It's very "mask off" and has that same plain-truth delivery that you get from Chomsky (but, unlike Chomsky, more dispassionate if not a bit sinister). It's like reading a declassified, evil blueprint.
First: your recommendations were a thoughtful, varied bunch that will appeal to different folks for different reasons; I appreciate that. Second: the 80’s, for all its hyper-marketing/commercialism, also witnessed a passionate anti-commercialism in (some) of its youth culture (DIY fanzines, DIY/punk ethos/music lyrics… not that these small, local scenes were immune to commercialism/marketing (they weren’t). Third: the concept of “co-optation” has always fascinated me (as in, Marketing is the machinery of cooptation, or something like that?). Finally, I’m glad The Algorithm recommended one of your earlier videos to me, because I have enjoyed all of them. Make moar. :)
Society of the Spectacle was a book I picked up unsure of what to expect, I came out a strange Stirnerist-Marxist. Ideological fanfic ass opinions now.
They Live was a critique of Reganomics. It was greatly misunderstood by a lot of Bro's who would probably be a fan of Regan. I think it falls under "You had to be there" to understand the shift in the culture during the height of the Regan administration.
bro u look like HBO 'mberguy but with hair lol. Or maybe you are HBO 'mberguy i dunno. Anyway, that tentacrool video is amazing. Read Baudrillard. Start by the system of objects.
I strongly advise checking out the podcast ‘WHAT IS POLITICS’, it is more political focused and less marketing. But he has a great way of analysing material conditions, incentives and the leverage power creating the power structures we live in currently.
My kind of accidental strategy was just to let myself feel the opposite of what they want me to feel (I have stubbornness issues, so this is easy for me). For things that I don't see super frequently, this works great, I wind up with slightly negative feelings about a thing that I didn't want anyway, and after a little while I forget about the whole thing. If a long time passes and then I see it again, I remember being vaguely annoyed by it. For things that DO get advertised to me aggressively... well, I never wind up supporting them, but I wouldn't call it a win for me, either. One such product was the one with all the insufferable "YOU'RE NOT A DISH" ads, which I developed such a hatred for that when that soap popped up in my local grocery store I reflexively turned around and had to talk myself into getting the thing I came for rather than just leaving. I was so flooded with ads for a certain game that when I see fan content for it I assume my adblock has stopped working when, nope, that's just perfectly unsponsored fanart because someone whose art I like was inspired by this game that has been ruined for me by their impressively obnoxious ad campaign.
Just wanted to say I am finding your videos really informative and helpful, thank you. I would also like to politely request that you consider dropping background music, I find it quite distracting and unnecessary! Peace!
Just commenting to say I'm glad I found this! Good stuff. Genetically modified skeptic has a video on how music and church services are structured to "sell" church as well. Tangentially related but I figured if you're interested in anti-marketing, you'd probably find it interesting as well. That reminds me of something else too lol. Rudolf Rocker's Nationalism and Culture is an incredible work of political theory and philosophy. It's a bit dense but the book is a critical analysis of heirarchical power and how it's been structured and used throughout history (in a nutshell, it's a very long book haha). Plenty of people watching this would likely find it interesting and there's an audiobook version on UA-cam!
Nassim Taleb and his books Antifragile, Black Swan, and Skin in the Game. Don't trust people that are insulated from the cost of their advice if it goes badly. Advertising is the epitome of that principle.
Reading: Lacan and object a -> is precisely about the unconscious and marketing/capitalism. His work is meant to be read and re-read (he did not write books, only gave lectures ) but I can recommend the podcast Why Theory with Todd McGowan as an entry point to this work. If you feel that your analysis of marketing/capitalism the drive to fill your void with stuff has hit a wall, try philosophy. It is not about polemics but rather a true search for what is universal among people, beyond the desire to shop.
I see Chomsky, I click I love this video. I was already familiar with a couple of the references you brought up; specifically, They Live due to Zizek and Chomsky of course, but I leave thinking a lot about the point you made on elitism and 'pretending to drop out of society'. it's common to see someone who gains awareness of these societal issues/phenomena absolve themselves from further study or think of themselves as better for being in the know, so I love your explicit rejection of this common behavior
It’s funny that advertising was offered as a major in my journalism school and marketing is a business discipline in college, yet they go together so much that the lines are blurred or don’t even exist in a lot of cases. Even funnier that I went to J school (reporting) but ended up in marketing because journalism didn’t pay the bills 💀
i'd recommend to you / anyone else reading this to also check out the docuseries "the century of the self". its long but the whole thing's on youtube, even just the first episode is great. & it provides a lot of context for the proliferation of ideology thru propaganda (& how freud has way more to do with it than u may know), the origin of the term "PR", & how we started to target specific demographics & push excess on them for capital gain. i should also mention adam curtis' other doc, "hypernormalisation" , less related to advertising but honestly it all ties in lol
I engage in meditative techniques that RESIST marketing attempts of any kind. That is, I go through a full detox of my Inner Self and get it out of there.
The first time I noticed marketing sucks was when I heard my dad talking about online marketing to his patients (he was a dentist) and him and my mom were talking about creating a ‘pain’ for the patients that they could solve with their services.
Ngl I got triggered by jstor being mentioned but you inspired me to realize they have a free option and also that libraries have licenses. Idk it’s been a decade since I was doing college things
It's only sort of related to the things you've chosen but Bill Hicks' marketing bit is not educational but it is very funny and in a similar spirit to many of these.
I am wondering if you could do a video about political marketing? Seems a lot of money can be used to manufacture consent for the ruling class and its governance over our nation.
I've started playing a "game" in line at the grocery store: while you're waiting try to find a direction to look that does not have some product, advertising, etc in your field of view. It's extremely hard, and really I've only found looking directly at the floor or ceiling to be safe.
So i have been a Subscriber of Tantacrul for years now. I agree that the Corporate Music video is great and everybody should watch it. and while you are at it watch the rest of his videos. you will learn a lot about the design of Music Notation software. Even his most popular video is very different from the rest of his work but in the end it is a VERY important video. Out of everything you suggested i do think the Tantacrul video is the easiest to consume. Considering it is only a 15 minute video vs the other things you suggested. I do plan to watch the other videos you suggested but in the end i most likely i will not find the time to look at that hardcore research. Hope to see your next video soon.
Nothing constructive to add, I just want to complain: I was at the airport recently picking up my bags from baggage claim, and there were screens all over the place, and yet you had to hunt around for information about where your bags were going to be because all these screens were just showing ads.
That makes me think about the ads on the pumps at the gas station. It's so dystopian 🤢
@@once.upon.a.time. Can't slam the buttons for the mute fast enough.
It is getting so cheap to buy a screen, and so profitable to run ads, that we are seeing them everywhere.
@@playlistforlistening They removed those.
@@playlistforlistening You have mute buttons?
What got me was a the military. I’m anti-imperialism/colonialism now, but when I was younger, I thought America was #1 and really wanted to serve my country (and get access to healthcare and college, as I was very poor). So I joined the military. It didn’t work out and the released me before I finished basic. But while I was there, there was almost nothing in the way of ads. Pro-military propaganda, obviously, but almost nothing from a corporation. I did get to stare out over the trees and fence at the M of McDonalds, but that was about it. For 2 months, I didn’t constantly have ads shoved in my face.
But the second I set foot outside of that base, I was bombarded with advertisements. It made me feel so gross and I’ve hated ads since.
True, they still work on me sometimes. I’m not dissecting every ad that comes my way because that is impossible. But I do try to pay attention and ask what they want from me and take a little pleasure in denying them.
When you get a break from it it's really shocking when you encounter it again. For me it was when I stopped watching TV for a long time. Then I visited my parents and we were watching something with a ton of ads and I just thought this is backwards they should be paying us to watch this. No matter how much it costs if there are that many commercial breaks they should be paying you to watch it.
Not sure if you’ve mentioned this in another video or anything, but Naomi Klein’s 1999 book No Logo remains the bible on the harmful, wide-reaching impacts of branding. I feel like, for multiple generations of readers, that has been the thing that turned them on to the anti-consumerist/anti-advertising movement; I know it was for me!
Really appreciate this one!
On the topic of your "Story Time" chapter, I have become increasingly aware of how pervasive ads have become, specifically ones that should not be shown to children.
Horror movie season (Jan-Feb/Sep/Oct) is an example where nightmare inducing shock is plastered all over, and these poor kids have few places to hide. I hate it...
great job! adorno’s culture industry and debord’s the society of the spectacle.
I like this little oasis of disdain for consumerism, thanks mustache man
Hey, handsome.
Thank you for the video.
Fabulous, as usual.
I especially love the chill music.
I was worried the animated characters weren't there, so I was happy to see them at the end.
Love your channel, no doubt if you keep at it I’m sure you’ll be successful. You fill a niche I feel nobody else does as well
Ads really trigger my PDA, I hate hate HATE being told to buy something by an ad. Ads quite literally have the opposite effect on me. I have several ad blockers on all my devices, and I either mute ads if I come across them in the wild or I physically turn away from them. I stopped watching TV because of this, now all I watch is on UA-cam
You will love Carefree Wandering, the UA-cam channel of Prof. Hans-Georg Moeller.
His video series on media theory is the most relevant to your interests.
Watching his entire catalog was like doing an introductory course to critical philosophy and media theory.
He taught me things I can't unsee, and I suspect you'll enjoy it for precisely that reason.
this makes me want to look at the syllabus for the lass I took on advertising in uni… right now I default to UA-cam “deinfluencers” like Kimberley Clark and more recently Shawna Ripari… But Raymond Williams’ ”Advertising: The Magic System”Horkheimer and Adorno’s theories of the culture industry, Bourdieu’s articulation of conspicuous consumption in “Distinction” etc feed something for me that “content” does not. An adjacent academic discipline that I find especially interesting is political economy, especially the work of Eileen Meehan.
Great video! Thank you so much for compiling the media about this under-discussed but important topic!
So I was listening to WKHB the other day when the station went to comercial "break".
Something I couldn't help but notice was that the ads wheren't ultra vomit turbo cringe. Like, they where just inconveniant.
So... Listen to more AM radio I guess?
The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture by Theodor W. Adorno
I'll make a video on my strange nothings account responding to this video, but let me do some research over the weekend first about what I want to say. I'll write an essay, but I want to respond to this.
so many great resources are being posted in the comments, i would love if there was a document collecting all such great methods for research & reading materials + educational things to watch. i don't have the energy to make one right now as it's almost midnight here after another exhausting day at my retail job i can barely handle as a person with rapidly increasingly worsening disabilities as well as probably going to become homeless soon due to my abusive parents wanting to kick out me & my disabled sister, again. things are so scary out here. the obsession with buying buying buying over the cost of human life might take me & my sister out before the year is over if we do become houseless again. no place we can afford, no programs to help us, no jobs we can do & also be paid enough to live. this country doesn't want us to be alive & we can feel it pressing on our necks more & more. i hope people becoming more aware of the evils of advertisements & capitalism will reduce other people from getting consumed by capitalism, but i fear it's too late, at least for me, to make it out alive. can't afford a therapist so i'm sorry for anyone who reads this. be kind, be safe, good night.
damn what's the background music?
Mcluhan and Postman
Today I was waiting in the doctors office, and I realized that it wasn’t just like a News TV channel or something like that playing on the obnoxiously loud TV in the corner, but I was in there long enough to realize it was just a loop of ads for three different brand name
Prescriptions.
Branded pharmaceuticals is so usa .
Everywhere else just uses the generic compound name and wouldn't even consider which company made it.
16:20 - "On the one hand, I do agree that basically every other social movement is fundamentally more important than anti-consumerism." Except anti-consumerism is intrinsically linked with human rights and other social movements. Hyper-consumerism drives sweatshops, horrific mining practices, excess carbon emissions, forced prison labor - these all affect the marginalized for the material comfort of the global north.
Books are cool too, but my parents dunking on every single ad with me during commercial breaks worked way better than if they sat me down and lectured me on theory. Nothing teaches you more about marketing ideology than watching a bunch of ads until you see the dorks in the brainstorming room trying to come up with the idea behind them
I’ve worked in Marketing and Advertising for the past 9 years as an art director, illustrator, and design lead. I agree with what you’re saying. This career path was a fallback from a career as an illustrator. If you want to understand the tools of communication and their impact, read Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman who are media theorists. If you ever want an insider look, I’d be happy to collab with you.
yessss, was gonna suggest The Medium is the Massage, although it's not 100% on topic
My aunt groomed me from a young age to be good at sales at her flea market booth from which she sold Avon in the late 90s. I got into marketing in the early 2000s and was great, as long as I believed in what I was selling. I quickly learned that I can't sell junk to people that don't need it. Fiber Optic Internet was the last product I did street-team marketing on, before enlisting in the military so I could go to college instead.
Another resource - The Century of the Self. It's an award-winning miniseries that's posted on UA-cam by its creator Adam Curtis, which documents the discovery and application of psychology into business (public relations, marketing) and politics throughout the 20th Century, giving countless concrete examples of how the public has been manipulated using these tools.
There's another documentary made by the same guy, Adam Curtis, called "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace", which is also equally great, if not, better and touches on similar topics but with more focus on how technology has been harnessed to achieve the same.
@@naughtiusmaximus789 both great picks
Century of the Self is a must see. Marketing was created by Freud's NEPHEW??!!
I will third this. But be careful, itd going to lead you out if the second matrix if you keep walking the road.
Big ups on The Century of the Self and really anything Adam Curtis puts out
Something that's helped me in recent weeks is a little post-it note on my monitor, which says "do not buy anything because of an ad." If I've run out of toothpaste, sure, I can buy more. If my socks have holes in them, yes, I can buy new ones. But if I see a cOoL nEw ThInG in an ad (or a marketing email), I am simply not allowed to buy it. This has shown me just how much my own spending habits have been dictated by advertisement, rather than genuine need or utility. Most importantly, it has helped me be a hell of a lot less mindless and to snap out of it BEFORE I hit the "complete order" button.
Naomi Klein is amazing. Her books, "Shock Doctrine," "No is Not Enough"
No Logo was a very interesting read!
naomi kein ftw
I think anti-consumerism is sort of relevant to other social movements in the sense that it is about pure propaganda and accepted norms in society. So I think being aware of this stuff does make you more aware of the propaganda and the powerful playing on 'this is normal' with regard to more pressing life-or-death issues.
There is another side of the advertising ecosystem that is worth exploring: the tech industry who harvests people's data and sells it to advertisers. I would love to see a video on tech's involvement here. Some examples include social media, payment companies (like Square) that give you store/restaurant points in exchange for your purchasing info, data collection from cars and IoT, etc.
I'm throwin this out there before I watch the video, because I doubt it'll come up on your list. A web series that hooked me into anti-marketing in the gaming sphere was Jim Sterling. Their series back on Escapist Magazine in 2010 or so, called The Jimquisition, was the only thing I ever saw talking consistently and critically about consumer protection issues in the gaming world. They covered the progression of games to "Live Services," the growing ubiquity of microtransaction stores and obscuring currencies, and a ton of other great topics. I'm glad I watched them back then, because it led me in a philosophical direction that I'm proud of today.
god jim sterling was ahead of the curve back in the day, i dont really know what theyre up to today
The Jimquisition has been running independently for years, on James Stephanie's UA-cam channel! It still covers much the same topics of consumer protection and abusive industry practice. I don't watch it regularly anymore as frankly it gets a bit repetitive and tiring... the industry just doesn't change. Still, I think just about anyone could benefit from being introduced to James' work, new or old.
Oh wow YESSS the Jimquisition totally opened my mind and eyes to look out for this very thing, not just in the games industry but beyond. Haven’t thought about them in years!
To protect yourself against advertising is largely a technical problem. It's uninstalling chrome and installing an ad blocker on Firefox. It's using revanced to remove ads out of your favorite apps. It's manually going and hitting "unsubscribe" on every junk marketing mail that comes without your consent when you sign up for any account. It's disabling most tracking in windows with scripts and settings. Real die-hards can go the full Linux and Pi-hole route. But this is admittedly only something afforded to people with the education and time to do so. In your example, children are defenseless, as they lack the technological literacy to protect themselves.
Again, it doesn't protect you from everything, but you cant just print a million flyers the same way you can duplicate a million banner ads. Physical things dont scale.
On a side note, I would say that marketing enforces itself so far is it implies that the companies who can afford it are legitimate enough - or legitimate in enough ways - that purchasing their product isn't a risk. It may be provably unethical, but it isnt a risk. "Nobody ever got fired for buying ibm" just like nobody ever pissed off a car full of people by suggesting mcdonalds, even if there are objectively better alternatives to both.
Hey, I would get pissed about going to McDonald's. I worked there for too long and they're part of the boycott
I live in the foothills of Northeast California and eat pine cones.
@@raultrashlord4404 sounds like a good life
Have you read Advertising S#!ts In Your Head? It's this great little book full of art, essays, manifestos and how-to's from guerilla ad-swappers. It focuses on marketing in the shared physical realm and works that satirize the ads they replace or erase them entirely in favor of beautifying common spaces. As much an indispensable resource as it is a perfect bit of propaganda for the unsuspecting guest-bathroom reader to stumble upon, imo
I despise advertising and everything it entails. I can respect the effort of the editors, actors, cinematographers, etc but i will never not hate the concept. Just thinking of the amount of waste that goes into producing things like commercials, billboards, what have you makes me so angry. I skip all ads i can and mute the ones that cant. I dont need a reminder that walmart still exists, im american
So I can't advertise a yard sale or a lemonade stand? Where's the line?
@@Broken_robot1986 The line is wherever the Commisar draws it!
@Broken_robot1986 I think there's a pretty obvious gap between getting people's attention for a local event and a multi-billion dollar corporation blasting ads at you from all angles. Like a local furniture store making a cheesy commercial isn't really harming anyone, but I don't need a reminder that coca-cola exists, y'know?
the amount of brainpower that goes into marketing campaigns is what I find particularly insidious. these are smart people. we could be using their intelligence in so many different sectors that actually serve public need/wellbeing rather than the profit motive
One of my radicalization moments was also related to conventions. I realized I was spending hundreds of dollars... to go shop and buy stuff. I was dealing with a paywall to pay for stuff. Got me to start paying a lot more attention.
Yep, that's why I hate them unless they have actual things to do. Whether that be cosplaying (not my bag) or real events (PAX Unplugged, playing games etc), I only care about cons that have things to do that aren't spending loads of cash for useless junk.
I agree about 'They Live." I think watching it closer to when the time when it was realeased would make it feel more impactful as the access people had to media in general was so comparably small in quantity vesus today, let alone media with that specific type of rhetoric. But I think today, now that marketing has evolved passed the more passive and general billboard/tv ad into its modern day form where advertising is even more psychological and its methods are hyper specific to each person. In short, marketing wasn't yet industry which actively spies on every single thing you do on the personal level, which I think is why 'We Live' can feel more rhetorically hallow by today's standards.
Also, its hard for me at least to even engage with Chomsky's work anymore after learning of his ties to Epstein
Yeah, the problems this guy (and people lime him) has with They Live (and by extension, Bill Hicks and George Carlin, heard the same complaints about them) are due to time, not anything inherently wrong with their content itself.
Both of these comedians and They Live were incendiary at their heyday because it was FRESH and novel.
Mark fisher's "capitalist realism" is a great read.
seconding this.
edit: I‘ve also found Adorno and Horkheimer‘s concept of culture industry to be something that repeatedly comes to mind when navigating consumerist culture.
Tbh, more effective than any book or movie is looking at advertising you see around you and asking "what is this trying to get me to think?" and then talking to friends and family about it. You could probably make it a game with your kids, if you've got any; it would certain help them get good critical thinking skills.
That is a really good idea. Making a game about that with kids legitimately sounds like a brilliant way to build critical thinking skills (and I say this as someone who studied early childhood education in college)
I do this all the time but people just say I'm cynical lol
Other resources:
The Idler Magazine
Adbusters
What would Jesus Buy/ Rev, Billy and the Stop shopping choir
Kimberly Clarks Miniseries "how to stop shopping in 5 easy steps"
most of Daniel Millers academic work on consumerism
Is academic marketing research really the most powerful resource? Of the handful of marketing professionals I watch on youtube (e.g. Atrioc, fmr. head of global marketing for Nvidia) and know IRL, they largely ignore academic research and see it at very disconnected from actual marketing practice. As you may know, academic empirical marketing research is facing down a bad replication crisis right now. More often I hear that trade journals and trade databases are more powerful for understanding the marketing world than academic marketing research. There is overlap between the 2, but it’s moderate at most. What do you think?
Chomsky is not a great person. Often he embraces the notion of an enemy of an enemy being a friend, which is just... Dumb. His thoughts on many modern conflicts are just "merica is bad, so let's side with anyone else". And that way he sometimes finds himself agreeing with people, you should never agree with under no circumstances. And I'm saying that as a person who lives under one of the regimes he's heavily cheering for. And that's not a good regime by any measure even compared to 'murica, so I'm a little skeptical of his work.
Btw, his linguistics stuff is rather questionable, so it's my other problem with promoting him
I’m a marketer and I love this so much. From my perspective, it’s a discipline that can be used for good (connecting people with a genuine problem with the best solution for them), but marketing has turned into such an exploitative, manipulative practice that has led to an explosion of harmful consumerism. I fully support people learning more about how they’re manipulated so they can better resist and even push back against it. I also really, really despise advertising. It’s the worst practice in marketing and I don’t do it or recommend it.
Just make sure to avoid what Chomsky said about the bosnian or cambodian genocides
truly a "separate the author from their work" moment here 😬
I'm mostly commenting to boost your algorithm and get your thoughts in front of more people. But I also want to say that I really appreciate your videos! You put into words a vague feeling I've had for years but couldn't articulate to others. Please keep up the good work!
My moment was watching Fight Club as a kid. And, some real-world experiences when I was…5 I guess?
Example: My grandparents made a sled out of a VW hood, with CARPET and handles in it. I originally get made fun of because I don’t have the stuff everyone else has, but after less than an hour, everyone is helping with this one because it’s safer and went straight,, moves faster because of the weight, lets 4 people on it, and it was warm.
i've been watching ted lasso lately, and the (misattributed) quote of "be curious, not judgemental" really rings true here, after the other kids realized there's nothing wrong with you having something different than them. thanks for the cute story :)
As someone who loves technology, but hates the consumerism and corporate fanboyism often associated with the culture, Cory Doctorow is a breath of fresh air.
Enshittification is tbh one of the most important theories of our time. Saw him speak on it a few months ago and it was a fantastic deconstruction not just of the problems but the solutions as well. Neat dude!
@@welpppppppppppppp Highly agreed!
Yes!! I recently read “Walkaway” and “In Real Life” and looking forward to diving in deeper.
I don't have any recommendations for this actual topic, but I'm reading The Elements of Rhetoric (How to Write and Speak Clearly and Persuasively [A Guide for Students, Teachers, Politicians, and Preachers]) by Ryan N.S. Topping, and it seems kinda adjacently related. Anyway, thanks for another informative video!
The biggest anti-marketing ppl I know are my colleagues in advertising. lol, the pipeline from advertising to leftist is real. Some of the philosophy tube guys were in marketing at one point and also the fishbowl discourse is always shitting on marketing and capitalism. It really is an experience of seeing how the sausage is made and radicalization.
I agree because Im one of those people
@@jg6551 same hahaha
Thanks for this video. I've been working in marketing for 5 years now and the more I do it the better I've gotten at noticing marketing when it's hiding. I finally got out of cell phone cases and got into tourism SEO thinking travel would be less evil... Not exactly.
My anti-martketing tip is the library. Often libraries have access to large databases of research like jstor so if your not a student and looking to do research got the library.
Also loved the Pokemon Go reference, one of my favorite games because it manipulates me to run longer.
As someone who worked in marketing for years, it's not an ethical field. When you're pushing products at people who don't need them and can't afford them, you're a part of the problem. You're helping fill the wallets of people who have more money than they will ever spend, at the cost of people who are often just getting by.
Clicked for the anti-marketing starter pack, stayed for the cyndaquil community day
it’s not that surprising that the advertisers make their plans known thru research journals that are publicly available; they understand that hardly anyone 1. looks at them 2. cares, & 3. ultimately, the knowledge that you are being manipulated doesn’t make the manipulation less affective (in many cases certain types of manipulation are MORE effective when the subject knows they are being manipulated)
there's nothing nefarious about it on the researchers' end. that's just how academic publishing works. it sucks and literally everybody i've ever talked to in academia agrees that it sucks. unfortunately it's a non-trivial problem to solve. the current publishing system works well enough that nobody really has a strong incentive to change things. on the flip side the publishers have a strong incentive to keep things as they are.
No Logo by Naomi Klein really opened my eyes to the schemes of marketing (especially clothing brands like NIKE and the shift to produce overseas) in the 90s/ 2000s I think. And how market researches used to try to go undercover and get with popular groups of teens to market to them. I highly recommend!
I recommend you check out Caps Lock by Ruben Pater. The sub title is "How Capitalism Took Hold of Graphic Design, and how to Escape from It". While not marketing specific the content is still relevant.
I was binge watching the older videos when a new one popped up. How did you know? XD
man your vocabulary is superb, the way you speak and form ideas just makes SENSE to my brain
The best books I've ever read on marketing is a trilogy published around 2000 by Julie B. Schor: The Overworked America (why the pace of work has gotten so much more intense despite how much efficiency and comfort there is in modern life), The Overspent American (why do we keep buying stuff and why does it never stop? Why are we never truly happy through purchases and how has our culture evolved to put us in this position?) and, my favorite, Born to Buy (marketing to children, industry practices, and the ethics of what kids really want). They're a little bit dated (mostly because the smartphone world has changed so much in these fields) but they are still very helpful and I highly, highly recommend them to anyone wanting to learn more about this subject.
The Overworked American by J. Schor has some great thought on marketing and consumerism. The main theme is how Americans have lost leasure time to work but it describes how consumerism plays into that.
I’m 23 , graduated may 2023 with a business marketing degree , been working for a year in marketing now & I am so anti marketing.
Studying a course called consumer analysis really turned me off , now that I’m actually in the work force ….i was on the right path lmfao. It’s a cool field but damn shit sucks
Great video! Ngl, I'm glad you specificed your intent with this channel, when I first got reccomended it, I was a bit afraid it would be one of those "redpill society man" kind of "now that youre aware of society's problems, thats it, job done, you get to feel smug and superior to those who dont have access to the same resources you do" kind of channels. But I'm pleasantly surprised! I honestly think its such a shame genuine good communities like encourging each other to buy less and interact with what we have access to more is so often highjacked by people who act like consumerism is the fault of greedy working class people who dont have self discipline, instead of like... companies taking advantage of normal human psychology.
Thank you for keeping in "It's Cyndaquil time!" I needed that laugh in these trying times. Wonderful video as always, I can't wait to dig into these resources.
I need to give Chomsky a listen I think. Your comments on the part about Women and the Myth of Consumerism are spot on. I've observed the "only I can see through the guise of marketing" a lot over the last few years. It's a sucky attitude.
Great video, i liked all of the things you mentioned, and i'm a big fan of your approach and the tone of the videos. i'm not particularly activist-y bc honestly i don't like the tone of many activists (maybe the loudest), maybe they've learned from advertising lol. it seems like adjacent discourse is very polarized either by obsession to mobilize to the point of performance (empty activism, using links to "save Gaza" as almost punchline) or the opposite, what you said about this patronizing tone that assumes a mindless sheep where only the elite break out.
I've some suggestions that i'd like specifically you to do (sorry if it sounds aggresive, don't do them if you don't want/can't prioritize those, i meant that i'm interested in your take in particular, as opposed to these being topics that i feel like i have a good nose for if i were to attempt to do them myself):
- follow up vid on the papers thing: i'm curious on which papers you've found most revealing, but from the first set of papers you mention, the industry ones where ppl "tell on themselves" for lack of a better word. if for some reason it's not legal or w/e to show the papers on video, just mentioning them and a couple points from them that you thought
- you interviewing people: two kinds of people: the first is some researcher from marketing, one of those industry ppl who tells on themselves lol. some kinda neuroscience in marketing person or something. I think you would ask good questions, and i think that even if your tone is anti marketing, it's not clickbaity etc so i think someone could be willing to be the "pro marketing" voice in some interview. and the second kind would be some person who is "antimarketing" now but bc they've been on the other side. i feel like this is an easier yes and also that it is the video that could be more popular (bc of possible titles etc) but i also feel like it's harder to get the initial lead, plus it's probably a less insightful and more circlejerky conversation
I havent watched it but there is a UA-cam video of a presentation on marketing micro transactions in video games called "lets go whaling" which describes how developers can form the addiction
This isn't really marketing-specific, but for me "Propaganda" by Edward Bernays really illuminated the overlap between PR, political propaganda, and marketing techniques. It's like 160 pages, and was published in 1928. But it doesn't feel dated. Its age, instead, makes it feel almost fresh, because Bernays describes the methodology of spin in a way that would come off as self-incriminating today. It's very "mask off" and has that same plain-truth delivery that you get from Chomsky (but, unlike Chomsky, more dispassionate if not a bit sinister). It's like reading a declassified, evil blueprint.
First: your recommendations were a thoughtful, varied bunch that will appeal to different folks for different reasons; I appreciate that. Second: the 80’s, for all its hyper-marketing/commercialism, also witnessed a passionate anti-commercialism in (some) of its youth culture (DIY fanzines, DIY/punk ethos/music lyrics… not that these small, local scenes were immune to commercialism/marketing (they weren’t). Third: the concept of “co-optation” has always fascinated me (as in, Marketing is the machinery of cooptation, or something like that?). Finally, I’m glad The Algorithm recommended one of your earlier videos to me, because I have enjoyed all of them. Make moar. :)
"This is a channel where I make fun of marketing" Instantly subbed
I work in Marketing. Keep it coming
have you read society of the spectacle? What do you think of Marxist responses to advertising/consumerism
Society of the Spectacle was a book I picked up unsure of what to expect, I came out a strange Stirnerist-Marxist. Ideological fanfic ass opinions now.
They Live was a critique of Reganomics. It was greatly misunderstood by a lot of Bro's who would probably be a fan of Regan. I think it falls under "You had to be there" to understand the shift in the culture during the height of the Regan administration.
this absolutely reminds me of the (misdirected) masculine romanticization of the main character in fight club or taxi driver
Our future is a toss-up between Mad Max, Waterworld, and Ready Player One. I honestly don’t know which one to hope for at this point.
Planet of the Apes perhaps?
bro u look like HBO 'mberguy but with hair lol. Or maybe you are HBO 'mberguy i dunno. Anyway, that tentacrool video is amazing. Read Baudrillard. Start by the system of objects.
I strongly advise checking out the podcast ‘WHAT IS POLITICS’, it is more political focused and less marketing. But he has a great way of analysing material conditions, incentives and the leverage power creating the power structures we live in currently.
My kind of accidental strategy was just to let myself feel the opposite of what they want me to feel (I have stubbornness issues, so this is easy for me).
For things that I don't see super frequently, this works great, I wind up with slightly negative feelings about a thing that I didn't want anyway, and after a little while I forget about the whole thing. If a long time passes and then I see it again, I remember being vaguely annoyed by it.
For things that DO get advertised to me aggressively... well, I never wind up supporting them, but I wouldn't call it a win for me, either. One such product was the one with all the insufferable "YOU'RE NOT A DISH" ads, which I developed such a hatred for that when that soap popped up in my local grocery store I reflexively turned around and had to talk myself into getting the thing I came for rather than just leaving. I was so flooded with ads for a certain game that when I see fan content for it I assume my adblock has stopped working when, nope, that's just perfectly unsponsored fanart because someone whose art I like was inspired by this game that has been ruined for me by their impressively obnoxious ad campaign.
Just wanted to say I am finding your videos really informative and helpful, thank you. I would also like to politely request that you consider dropping background music, I find it quite distracting and unnecessary! Peace!
Just commenting to say I'm glad I found this! Good stuff.
Genetically modified skeptic has a video on how music and church services are structured to "sell" church as well. Tangentially related but I figured if you're interested in anti-marketing, you'd probably find it interesting as well.
That reminds me of something else too lol. Rudolf Rocker's Nationalism and Culture is an incredible work of political theory and philosophy. It's a bit dense but the book is a critical analysis of heirarchical power and how it's been structured and used throughout history (in a nutshell, it's a very long book haha). Plenty of people watching this would likely find it interesting and there's an audiobook version on UA-cam!
Nassim Taleb and his books Antifragile, Black Swan, and Skin in the Game.
Don't trust people that are insulated from the cost of their advice if it goes badly. Advertising is the epitome of that principle.
Reading: Lacan and object a -> is precisely about the unconscious and marketing/capitalism. His work is meant to be read and re-read (he did not write books, only gave lectures ) but I can recommend the podcast Why Theory with Todd McGowan as an entry point to this work. If you feel that your analysis of marketing/capitalism the drive to fill your void with stuff has hit a wall, try philosophy. It is not about polemics but rather a true search for what is universal among people, beyond the desire to shop.
A book on my reading list that I haven't read yet but seems like it would be on topic. Is "Program or be programmed" by Douglas Rushkoff.
They're a bit old now, but the Schwarz JSTOR dumps are still around...
Look into self proclaimed 'culture jammers' the Yes Men. They fit the vibe you're broadcasting to a T.
Love the conversation here - can't wait to learn more!
I see Chomsky, I click
I love this video. I was already familiar with a couple of the references you brought up; specifically, They Live due to Zizek and Chomsky of course, but I leave thinking a lot about the point you made on elitism and 'pretending to drop out of society'.
it's common to see someone who gains awareness of these societal issues/phenomena absolve themselves from further study or think of themselves as better for being in the know, so I love your explicit rejection of this common behavior
Why believe this is the least important of the social movements? It feels very important and bi-partisan in a divided time.
It’s funny that advertising was offered as a major in my journalism school and marketing is a business discipline in college, yet they go together so much that the lines are blurred or don’t even exist in a lot of cases. Even funnier that I went to J school (reporting) but ended up in marketing because journalism didn’t pay the bills 💀
i'd recommend to you / anyone else reading this to also check out the docuseries "the century of the self". its long but the whole thing's on youtube, even just the first episode is great. & it provides a lot of context for the proliferation of ideology thru propaganda (& how freud has way more to do with it than u may know), the origin of the term "PR", & how we started to target specific demographics & push excess on them for capital gain. i should also mention adam curtis' other doc, "hypernormalisation" , less related to advertising but honestly it all ties in lol
I engage in meditative techniques that RESIST marketing attempts of any kind. That is, I go through a full detox of my Inner Self and get it out of there.
Why the empty filler beat underscoring music?!?
I'd suggest watching the 2011 documentary Samsara :)
The first time I noticed marketing sucks was when I heard my dad talking about online marketing to his patients (he was a dentist) and him and my mom were talking about creating a ‘pain’ for the patients that they could solve with their services.
Hey I like your music choices for this video,
where'd you get them? I want them, thank you
“Souless”
Always uttered by cookie cutter millennials with no soul, ironic.
Ngl I got triggered by jstor being mentioned but you inspired me to realize they have a free option and also that libraries have licenses. Idk it’s been a decade since I was doing college things
It's only sort of related to the things you've chosen but Bill Hicks' marketing bit is not educational but it is very funny and in a similar spirit to many of these.
I am wondering if you could do a video about political marketing? Seems a lot of money can be used to manufacture consent for the ruling class and its governance over our nation.
"This is a channel where I make fun of marketing." I have never hit the subscribe button within the first ten seconds of a video before.
Thats crazy we just watched They Live last night randomly then this came up
you gotta put ublock origin on that thumbnail, it’s a 200% better blocker
If you don't want a paywall: Ana's Archive
The algo suggesting me this indicates my mics have ears. Marketing irony
ABP is closed source malware that approves their own ads 😂
I've started playing a "game" in line at the grocery store: while you're waiting try to find a direction to look that does not have some product, advertising, etc in your field of view. It's extremely hard, and really I've only found looking directly at the floor or ceiling to be safe.
I can't stand marketing, I'm so glad I found this
So i have been a Subscriber of Tantacrul for years now. I agree that the Corporate Music video is great and everybody should watch it. and while you are at it watch the rest of his videos. you will learn a lot about the design of Music Notation software. Even his most popular video is very different from the rest of his work but in the end it is a VERY important video. Out of everything you suggested i do think the Tantacrul video is the easiest to consume. Considering it is only a 15 minute video vs the other things you suggested. I do plan to watch the other videos you suggested but in the end i most likely i will not find the time to look at that hardcore research. Hope to see your next video soon.