“If something got you to turn off T.V., it's a total success”
~ Stephen King
It isn't just at dinner time, but lately I have been paying attention to a phenomenon which very obviously is not good for us. Instead of getting better, it is getting worse. It is also an example of unintended consequences, in a way that can invade our psyches daily, particularly if we watch news and commentary programs on TV. Most "news programs" on TV anymore can't really be called "news" - it's almost entirely commentary, the view depending on the channel. Perhaps that was always true, to a degree. We just didn't know it in the past.
That is another topic altogether. Let's focus on the ads.
We could focus on why there are so many ads on various "health related products", but even that is not the purpose of my writing today. The short answer to that question is that is where the money is, the money to pay for ads, and the money earned from ads. Why that's where the money is, that's another issue too.
This has to do with an intrusion into our psyches that would never have been tolerated in the past. There was a time, long ago, when people would have complained about it. People don't do that much anymore, or not in the way it would have happened before. In fact, it just would not have been done, not in the past, not only because some of this content is subject to regulations that did not exist in those days, requiring some of what is happening, but also because it just wouldn't have been appropriate. And that would have been obvious. And still should be.
When this really started to come to my attention, I realized there was a very intentional technique being used, that somehow lulls us not to really notice - until we notice. These ads contain very cheerful and innocuous stories, as well as music that might divert your attention. While this is going on, we are subjected to all sorts of unpleasant physical details that are not something anyone wants to hear while preparing or sitting down to a meal (or at any other time, really). It may be important information, which is ironic, things one should know about the products being advertised - and that is why it is required information now (and before "now", you didn't see these ads at all, not in the distant past - only in a medical office did you hear about such things).
Lately I have noticed jarring images are thrown into the mix, and those are not at all "required" - images showing severe physical conditions, or even descriptions of the awful things that might happen to you, physically, if you don't partake of the product, in vivid detail. None of this is good for any of us, and not for children, either. Many seem directed towards those who are older, but not entirely. It is those of us who are older who would be particularly annoyed or jarred by them, knowing they simply aren't "normal" (and should have never been normalized).
Some might say that noticing any of this is "a success" for the product in question. (And we're not even talking about ads on the internet.) Perhaps for some, that would be true, but not for those of us who pay attention. An ad of this nature has nothing to do with what we might choose, or even render the opposite of its intended effect.
More people must be turning the sound off, as recently, there is more text, text describing physically unpleasant things you really don't want to read (and especially at dinner time).
They don't really care about whether your meal is pleasant. They really don't care. And that is not a small problem. Did they ever?
TV image in Public Domain on Wikimedia Commons.
