Basement Chronicles

Commercials

I am what one might call "susceptible." A better word maybe is "trusting." A more negative synonym would be "gullible."

I have an inherent and probably misplaced trust in people and humanity at large. I tend to think that people will do the right thing, or that if they didn't, then they did it for the right reasons. I can even go so far as to forgive someone for doing something wrong if they had a good reason. I guess you have to have faith in something.

Some would say I'm alright. Some that I'm a "nice guy." Others that I'm young and naive, not yet well-versed in the full depravity of the human condition and the evermore struggle for self-preservation above any greater good. All of which I would consider accurate criticisms in any context.

Except recently. Recently, I've started to hate commercials.

I'll admit: I've been spoiled. The advent of the DVR. Pirated videos from Bittorrent sites. Even those acquired by more legal means. Particularly entire seasons of my favorite shows on a DVD set. Easily accessible. Completely available, whenever is most convenient. And most importantly: without having to suffer through commercial interruption.

I say "suffer" because that is what it feels like, to me at least. In order to be entertained, I have to endure commercial breaks. Every excruciating jingle, every transparent testimonial, every terrible excuse for computer animation with the intent of inducing an urge to buy a product. I understand the necessity: advertisement pays for the entertainment I am watching. Reaching millions of potential customers by way of inserting unavoidable thirty second segments into something I can enjoy perfectly well by itself.

I feel like I am being imposed upon. And so, in what seems like a perfectly rational reaction, I mute the commercials.

No longer do I hear Cal Worthington speaking overloud into a microphone about various opportunities for financing (as they have their own finance company). No longer do I hear that insidious, ungrammatical jingle for the Mattress Ranch. No longer am I repeatedly subjected to noise specially crafted to lodge itself within my subconscious, dislodged only by the consumption of things I simply do not need.

Sure, I can still see the flashing logos, the clever graphics, and other products of graphic artists who really wish they could pay the bills some other way. How else will I see when I need to put the sound back on? But billions if not trillions go into advertising, which isn't a bad thing. What's strange, odd, and probably not the greatest thing in my opinion, is that I am expected, no, all but required to watch these commercials. By whom? Well, by those creating the show (who have bills to pay) and those doing the advertising (those paying the bills). Those are obvious. Less so are the demands of those sitting next to me on the couch.

You would not believe how much this bothers other people watching the same television. "Why do you do this?" they ask. Now they have to sit through an awkward silence otherwise fulfilled by commercials. This is strange to them. Not necessarily a foreign concept, but uncomfortable. Imagine: a number of people sitting around a television, watching their favorite show. And they having nothing to say, about it, or anything else, in between breaks. Just awkward and eventually baleful stares towards myself and my guilty hand on the remote. It somewhat reminds me of a science fiction short story I can't remember, but warned against something very similar. I think in the end we just end up staring endlessly at a featureless box. Huh. Well, at least I get paid to do that at work.

I mention that I am "susceptible" because I want to show (in a Socratic manner) that I recognize this fact. And in recognition, I hopefully rise above such a flaw in being able to identify its presence. But that doesn't always happen. I don't always recognize (beforehand, and sometimes afterward) when I am being played for a fool, and then I suffer the consequences. Maybe I am not so young. And maybe I've lived long enough to realize that people have and will treat me as a tool for their machinations.

And that makes me defensive.

The entirety of advertising is playing on our fickle emotions and fears in order to sway demand in favor of someone's supply. And it works wonders. We each are played like instruments to the tune of what would otherwise be noise despite what most would consider important in our lives. We, as a society, love to be noticed, to be related to, to be catered and sold to in order to feel counted, rather than numbered. And so online dating sites target the lonely introverted SciFi channel viewers. Car makers buy out entire primetime shows ("limited commercial breaks") in order to introduce a captive audience to their newest line of wheeled boxes. Pharmaceutical companies push their newest offerings to the nightly and cable news. And, well, that's about all I can stand to watch at any length, but I'm sure you can fill in the rest.

Believe it or not, I have written things in these long months since I last posted anything. Unfortunately, the things I write consist of notes and paragraphs that lost their context or their direction almost immediately after I wrote them. However, a while ago, I wrote down that it was cause to celebrate when an advertisement no longer applied to you. I was probably referring to genital herpes medication, but the thought stuck. Advertisers, well-informed and precise in their craft, have to maximize the number of people they reach with each advertisement. For every herpes sufferer they reach, a much larger population laughs and wonders why all commercials having to do with afflictions of the crotch have somebody riding a bike. For those that cannot relate, an advertisement is simply noise.

The point I'm trying to make here is that of identity. I think we are all susceptible to the will of others, and probably in very subtle, startling, and dangerous ways. And, in a probably overly obvious statement, we lose our identity over time. When what we hear is noise, we can't help but repeat it. We speak in quotes and references, citing somebody who shares your opinion rather than making your argument. The result of our susceptibility to popular culture. I can't blame everything on advertisements. The fiction they depict is simply towards a more villifiable goal. One could argue that all entertainment is a tragic waste of our lives. But as far as I'm concerned, advertisements are an inarguable waste of my life, thirty seconds a piece. And so, as a defense mechanism for preserving life, I mute them.

So, Josh. What then, would you consider important in your life? What do you consider something worth dealing with, worth leaving the sound on for? Your work? Your books? Your writing?

What the hell is so important that it is so threatened by the minutes between time you are already wasting watching TV?

I recognize that life is short. And time spent not answering important questions is time I'll regret someday.