RE: The Angry Man Returns: Dreaming In TV Violence
I take it you wrote this article BEFORE you took up meditation! I will never again make fun of your yoga mat. :-)
I cannot help but imagine a focus group comprised of a dozen young Cryptogees. Now THAT would make a good sitcom. But hey, this is what's call, "honest feedback" and it's what everyone says they want. "Just tell us whatever comes to mind. Stream of consciousness."
Focus Group Leader: "How does this commercial make you feel?"
Pre-Meditation Cryptogee: "Like disemboweling you with my teeth."
That's both honest ... and disarmingly articulate.
Honestly, being in advertising, I agree with your sentiment ... if not quite the degree of your wildly-thrashing-about-as-if-possessed-by-a cohort-of-demons blind rage ... but then again, I've never seen "Halifax Howard," have I?
For a bunch of people who can't stop talking about how creative they are (the world of advertising has more self-congratulatory award ceremonies than every other industry combined ... times ten), 99% of ad people are astonishingly non-creative. Indeed, their use of the word "creative" alone could drive you nuts:
"Our creatives creatively created the creative."
Tell me that's not worth a little bloodshed.
Years ago, I coined a phrase that I have repeated upteen million times in advertising/marketing meetings: "You can't make people love you, by doing things that make them hate you." I've grown accustomed to being eyed with suspicion.
Quill
Ha! Yes indeed, this was written at least a couple of years before I took up meditation, and I must say that me, really shocked the me of now, my god I was angry!
I even thought about censoring past me a bit before putting it on, but then realised that would be self-defeating!
I'm totally on board with your point about the overuse of the word creative in advertising. Not to say there aren't lots of creative people involved in it, however it seems that a lot of the so-called creativity is based around adapting pre-existing ideas to ABC or XYZ product.
Anyway I still hate being advertised to when I'm not in a buying mood, but these days I deal with it by having adblocker plus installed and not watching TV.
On the rare occasions I do watch the old goggle box, I watch pre-recorded stuff, or pause the program for enough time to be able to fast forward the ads.
I'm fairly sure if you had, you'd also want to see him suffer extensively before dying a bloody and painful death. (oops, breathe @cryptogee, breathe!)
Cg