Nobody here is arguing for a strong effects model and you know it. Nobody is saying there’s a magic bullet. You have to be daft to believe there is. However, you also have to be silly to believe that what we see, what we experience, what we encounter has NO effect on us. We KNOW that we are shaped by stimuli, especially the stimuli that define our social contexts and that we are exposed to over time. We know that our neural pathways are wired and rewired by sensory inputs, that we physically becomes different animals in response to stimuli.

I’m describing a long-term cultural conditioning dynamic. You’re accusing me of describing something that had been pretty much discredited by the ’60s.

Third … advertising models of good looking aspects of the face and body are just that. Models. I feel sorry for the very few (but very media-highlighted) people who believe that these are good and true images. They are not, and those people who believe so should have a good talking to by their parents. Friends should intervene. Concerned people should not waste their time blaming advertising, they should provide care for their friend … and find help for the real problem.

Friends are intervening – that’s what this post is. The point is that while people know the models are models, I doubt the extent of the unreality is widely understood.

Fifth … whooooo (scary sound) … could it be subliminal? No. We’ve shown that subliminal advertising, though it can exist, does not have any effect.

Would you point to where I suggested that this is about subliminal?

We operate our society based on the notion that we are populated by reasonable human beings, generally able to sift truth from lies, generally able to see advertising for what it is. The idea that one would actually believe advertising to represent the full truth of things is not the act of a reasonable mind. The idea that one would try to shape one’s self-image based on what one sees in advertising is not the act of a reasonable mind.

You know, if I take this argument to its logical conclusion, it almost justifies PT Barnum, doesn’t it? Okay, people are responsible for not getting duped. Not that this is all that relevant to the argument that I’m making, but I’ll play along. Are those on the receiving end of the communication the only ones in the loop that bear responsibility, or do the communicators, the purveyors of the message, also have some sort of social, moral obligation not to lie?

I’ll keep it short. Mowing the yard pretty much tuckered me out.

First … I worked in advertising for more than a decade. Taught it for the same number of years at university. I know how these things work.

Second … on the imagined effect of advertising. If we really knew how to manipulate all you people out there, Ford wouldn’t be losing its ass. Ford would be hiring the nastiest, most powerful advertising demon possible, and they’d make you buy a damned truck. Do you want a truck? I thought not. Advertising cannot make people buy things they don’t want.

Third … advertising models of good looking aspects of the face and body are just that. Models. I feel sorry for the very few (but very media-highlighted) people who believe that these are good and true images. They are not, and those people who believe so should have a good talking to by their parents. Friends should intervene. Concerned people should not waste their time blaming advertising, they should provide care for their friend … and find help for the real problem.

Fourth … people decide on their own actions. To blame advertising is to fail to assume the responsibility of being a self-directed adult in this world. Advertising did that to you? Do tell.

Fifth … whooooo (scary sound) … could it be subliminal? No. We’ve shown that subliminal advertising, though it can exist, does not have any effect.

Sixth … whooooo (scary sound again, with hint of conspiracy) … maybe it just kind of dirties up the environment in a way that you can’t avoid it and it just kind of builds and eventually it seems to be that all the things you see in advertising really are right and true. This is the so-called critical thinker stance, and is really silly. See Third and Fourth above. Any reasonable human being knows advertising is not a right and true representation of the world. Even the Supreme Court says this is so.

We operate our society based on the notion that we are populated by reasonable human beings, generally able to sift truth from lies, generally able to see advertising for what it is. The idea that one would actually believe advertising to represent the full truth of things is not the act of a reasonable mind. The idea that one would try to shape one’s self-image based on what one sees in advertising is not the act of a reasonable mind.

Advertising did not crazy-up these isolated individuals who do believe these things. They were vulnerable long before advertising entered their lives. Much in the way that a neighbor may express who they are by the organization and care of their garden, some people use advertising as a tool by which they express themselves. In some cases this is a bad choice, but advertising did not cause the harm to the psyche.

I’m even more tired now than when I began. I hate this discussion, but need to enter it occasionally just because the record needs to be set a bit more straight than when I encountered it.

Thanks for your patience,

greg stene

Advertising’s appropriation of the photograph? What the hell? Way overdone to the point of being its own lie. But that’s only one silly thing in Moyer’s piece. My issue is not with the Moyer’s thing specifically, rather the imagined effect of advertising on our people, and the culture we create that’s reflected in Moyer’s piece, and in your words.

Sam, you know I really admire the way you write. But I’ve got to argue this point you’re making … the sense of the effect of the advertising world. It’s really got me going … I’ve got to go mow the yard first. Maybe calm down a bit.

I’ll come back to finish this if the Gatorade replenishes my precious bodily fluids, and if the Toro mower indeed starts on the first three pulls, and if my hair doesn’t flop into place in the right manner that will attract all sorts of beautiful women, and if my car doesn’t repel them, and if I can resist splashing myself with Axe before mowing …

On camera actors actually tend to use very little facial expression, and especially movie actors who appear in theaters with their eyeballs ten feet high.

There are notable (and often wonderful) exceptions, but the’re pretty rare, really.

For example, I was disappointed when actress Melinda Clarke (best known as Julie Cooper on “The OC”), with her trademark heavy-lidded sultriness, had her eyes done. Eyelids rolled up like a window-shade in the daytime, she looked as bright-eyed as an ingenue. Sexiness-wise, she thus fell back to the pack.

Many of these involve representations of the physical. I don’t doubt your critical faculties – they’re probably as cynical as mine are, from the sound of things – but to suggest that you’re simply unaffected is to suggest that you’re physiologically not human. At the VERY least you’re expending a lot of energy simply fighting the battle, even if you’re winning it.

Be honest: when Postman asks about the McDonald’s ad, “is it true?” had you ever even thought about it that way before? I know I hadn’t.

They all looked pretty good to me .

Out here a lot of women don’t seem to give a damn. There’s an emphasis on eating well and exercising and fuck the makeup and I love it.

Great post.

Jeff

Man, I love that woman. She’s set to do a little “deprogramming” while she’s there. And as a guy who is head-over-heals in love with his wife I’ve just got to say: I don’t want her in the centerfold of a magazine. I don’t want a representation of how she “ought” to be. I want her and nothing standing between our true selves. I want her in the centerfold of my life! [My apologies; I get corny and poetic when expressing affection for my wife and family]

One of my favorite short stories ever is called “Liking What You See: A Documentary” by Ted Chiang. It ponders how society and people deal with the opportunity to not be able to perceive human beauty. Remind me to lend it to you when I see you next week.

You’re not good enough. Neither is he or she. Salvation is available at a store or salon near you. Money should be no object….