Articles of the Month

Irritisements

Anthropologists say that holidays reflect a culture's values. If, in North America, we turn deeply religious holidays like Christmas and Easter into huge commercialized sales events, what does that say about our values as a culture? It's time we question and take a stand against the advertisements we are being bombarded by every day.

The public transit system in Ottawa, OC Transpo, recently installed TV screens in their bus shelters. There are already advertisements on the sides of the busses themselves and advertisements inside them (a universal trait of busses); there are also posters along the walls of the bus terminals and I have even seen busses completely painted with companies' logos. While I am irritated by this visual pollution, I have the choice to look away. These new screens, however, do not exactly let one off so easy. They also emit noise. Citizens who rely on public transportation in Ottawa are now forced to listen to techno music, business owners and provocative women, all trying to sell something or other, just while waiting for a bus. Advertisements have clearly become an offensive intrusion into our daily lives.

Children are easily seduced by advertising. Product placement and celebrity endorsement make kids want to be like whoever they think is ?cool' and make fun of the kids who aren't. Children have been this way for generations, I know, but it seems to me like kids today are more cruel and materialistic than when I was younger, and it was hard even then. Not wearing the most expensive clothes, or, like I heard from a classmate of mine, being an eleven year-old girl and having your panty-lines show can brand you a social outcast for years. Children in the 80's watched television shows like The California Raisins, He-Man and She-Ra, Teddy Ruxpin, Jem and the Holograms and My Little Pony'n Friends, which were either based on advertisements or were actually created as half-hour commercials for the toys of the same name. When certain advertising laws were changed the two major toy manufacturers, Hasbro and Mattel, placed advertisements for the toys in the commercial breaks as well. Even the most unaffected parent is forced to submit to the power of advertising, whether to prevent their child from becoming a misfit, or to cease the whining pleas for certain products.

Most of us would like to think that advertisements do not affect us, that we are too smart, too savvy to succumb to their allure. That would mean that most of us are wrong. Whether or not we consume based on the advertisements we see they invariably permeate almost every aspect of our lives. According to www.media-awareness.ca the average American sees, hears and reads approximately one hour worth of advertisements every day. That means that if you lived to be seventy-five years old, four of those years will have been spent on advertisements. Time is not the only thing you will have spent. Advertising is a fully tax-deductible business expense, which means that if you do reach seventy-five years old, you will have paid for those four wasted years! Thanks to advertising, political campaigns are based more on slandering the other candidates than they are on the issues of the party itself. While it is illegal for the government to censor media, advertisers can and do censor and influence the content of newspapers, television shows and other media. For example, if a company that sells weight-loss pills advertises in a women's magazine (which most do), they would pressure the magazine not to print any articles about the dangers of weight-loss pills to your health. Clearly, this is the market for such a product, and therefore also the market that most needs this kind of information. Unfortunately, the advertisers often win.

Like a light in the darkness, proving there is some hope left for our culture, Culture Jamming (also known as counter-advertising) emerges. According to www.abrupt.org : " "Culture Jamming" sticks where rational discourse slides off. It is simply the viral introduction of radical ideas. It is viral in that it uses the enemy's own resources to replicate itself?corporate logos, marketing psychology, clean typography, "adspeak". It is radical because?ideally?the message, once deciphered, causes damage to blind belief. Fake ads, fake newspaper articles, parodies, pastiche. The best CJ is totally unexpected, surprising, shocking in its implications." Culture Jammers have been around since the very early 1900's. Not only do they challenge advertisements, but all aspects of a culture. Artist John Heartfield dedicated much of his Culture Jamming to parodying Germany's Third Reich leaders. Parody journals like The Onion make us realize how questionable our news can be, and make us question ourselves for buying into it. A Culture Jammer can be an artist, a writer, or an activist. Even just sticking an opinionated message via Post-it Note onto an ad on a subway can put you into that category. Justice Louis LeBel, of the Supreme Court of Canada, in a recent ruling said "Counter-advertising assists in circulating information and protecting the interests of society, just as much as does advertising or certain forms of political expression." Culture Jamming encourages us to criticize the messages that are thrust upon us daily.

While advertisements may be inescapable in our society today the least we can do, for ourselves and for future generations, is question what we see.