Media

[farla]

So right now, I'm supposed be watching the Super Bowl. My mom called.

"Oh," I said. "Right, that thing."

"I can't believe you're not watching this!" she said.

"Who do we support again?"

My economics teacher also wanted us to watch it. "For the commercials". Because we're mindless sheep who obey commercials, so we should learn about them. This is kind of like how the feminism class' teacher wanted us to watch music videos so we could see how we're being degraded. Maybe I already know this stuff? Maybe there's a reason I go out of my way to avoid this stuff?

It's kind of like following comics on scans_daily. I read (for free) the comic bits there. Then, if I'm interested in the comic, I download it, again, for free. Then, if that's of reasonable quality, meaning not only a decent storyline but lacking in skintight outfits, incompetent women, etc, I might buy it. Because comics in general are full of pretty disturbing levels of misogyny, to the point I will go out of my way not to buy them. Similarly, I don't watch the broadcast news (it's garbage, and I don't want to reward garbage) or watch much television in general (ditto).

I've insulated myself to the point I don't encounter ads. The rare times I do encounter ads, I tend to ignore them. This does not mean "I delusionally tell myself that my three hundred shoe purchases had nothing to do with ads". It means I didn't buy three hundred pairs of shoes. Even my manga buying usually involves either reading it through at the store, or downloading and reading it online, or both, and I'm moving away from even that in response to being bothered by the editing. The closest I get to normal consumer behavior is gardening, and when I have to manually sign up for a billion catalogs then triple check each potential purchase against online information, I kind of suspect that ads are not a factor. Similarly, I am not just telling myself I don't appreciate sports. I don't. When I say the salaries are outrageous, I am not being foolish in my complaint despite the fact it is my viewership and support that creates the current system. Because I'm not part of the current system, not supporting it, and not watching it.

Comments

[wintersheir]

I can understand watching the superbowl ads because they're [supposed to be actually] entertaining, but the good ones will be on youtube soon enough, so why bother giving them the ratings? I'm with you--I download most everything, and I don't often feel guilty because 90% of everything is crap. Why support the garbage? That said, I'm still trying to break my bad habit of buying books that I could easily find at the library, and paying the inflated canadian price for them... (I nearly bought a new copy of Wizard's First Rule, shudder shudder.)

I still can't get my head around the massive amounts of money in advertising on the intarnets. Who actually clicks on those banners and links, even the poor souls who don't have them adblocked?

[farla.livejournal.com]

The ads go up in just about real time (http://sports.aol.com/nfl/superbowlads), so yeah, pretty easy.

Didn't really find the sampling I clicked to facilitate tomorrow's bullshitting to teacher to be that interesting. They're all very much meant for the male 18 to whatever the other number is demographic, which is to say they're stupid and puerile. I found the Iron Man commercial funny, but only in a "they think the movie with the alcoholic fascist who kicks puppies isn't going to bomb! They're so silly!" sort of way. That'll probably be my contribution to tomorrow's discussion, actually.

I nearly bought a new copy of Wizard's First Rule, shudder shudder.

I checked it out from our library and considered demanding a refund after reading the first few pages.

I still can't get my head around the massive amounts of money in advertising on the intarnets. Who actually clicks on those banners and links, even the poor souls who don't have them adblocked?

Hypothetically, targeted ads. If I'm reading a manga-based webcomic, I'm probably interested in anime. Generally, ads are only annoying if they're getting between me and something more interesting, or if they're for something I don't care about, so targeted banner ads can work.

I will, on occasion, click if I see a pretty picture that represents an anime I'm not familiar with, and in the case of things that are going to be shown on TV, this may make me check them out.

[wintersheir]

That's a good point actually--before I got adblock I'd sometimes click on the ones to webcomics that looked pretty/interesting.

[negrek.livejournal.com]

I nearly bought a new copy of Wizard's First Rule, shudder shudder.

I totally made that mistake on the recommendation of someone I'm never taking recommendations from again, ever.

[charizamdc.livejournal.com]

Wait a minute, I'm confused. People REALLY watch the Super Bowl for advertisements? Besides people being forced by economics/media teachers, I find this highly amusing and highly strange.

When I heard this previously I thought it was a joke XD

[farla.livejournal.com]

Well, so I hear. Everyone I know is already watching it for the sports, so I can't speak for what the average non-sport-caring person does.

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

I did that once. I believe I was twelve.

[kddreams.livejournal.com]

Speaking of ads: (although it's kinda completely unrelated)

Vernon Robinson For Congress

O.O

[farla.livejournal.com]

...I am frightened and confused. Is that a parody?

[kddreams.livejournal.com]

Ha ha, yeah, I wish. That was a real ad in North Carolina for the election around 2004 for senate.

When I first saw it, I couldn't tell if I should laugh or be really scared. It ended with a nervous laughter.

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

...

And it's the Conservative Republicans who are complaining about being stuck in the Twilight Zone?

[farla.livejournal.com]

You must have misunderstood them. I believe their statement was more along the lines of getting us stuck in the Twilight Zone.

I was reading a NY Times opinion piece today, about how Republicans shouldn't abandon McCain for being too liberal, because if they do that, a Democrat could win. As we all know, the Democrats sit up nights thinking about how the only thing they want more than to leave Iraq to the terrorists is to invite the terrorists into our country and offer them white Christian babies to eat. Also, they might possibly maybe not completely ignore the possibility of raising taxes. Run for the hills! THEY ARE COMING FOR YOUR MONEYS SO THEY CAN MURDER BABIES AND TURN YOUR CHILDREN GAY!

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

My head hurts so badly whenever I hear someone call McCain or Giuliani "fairly liberal." In that they apparently support gay marriage and abortion rights, even though no one can ever think of when exactly they said that. But they probably do, anyhow, because they're "fairly liberal." And if you ask for some semblance of supporting evidence, you're just being obnoxious. Because it's the conventional wisdom, don't you know.

The electorate, it is not looking so sharp.

[farla.livejournal.com]

The thing is, there are entire chunks of the population who think Fox News is in the pocket of the mighty liberal empire. (See, Iraq is full of happy smiling people who dance in the streets. The news just doesn't show us all the happy Iraqis. Because they're evil.) In comparison to their beliefs, which largely revolve around lynching strangers and raping close relatives, McCain is a human fount of kindness and tolerance.

Do they mention at any point that we need to only torture actual terrorists? They're too liberal. Have they not yet advocated nuking Iraq into "a giant glass ashtray"? They're too liberal. Do they believe criminals should have "appeals" and "rights" and "lawyers"? They're too liberal. Do they think some form of welfare should exist? They're too liberal. Are they planning continue taxes? They're too liberal. Do they not believe God created man six thousand years ago and that the earth is flat? They're too liberal. Do they think gays deserve to continue breathing our precious heterosexual air? They're too liberal. (Everyone knows gayness is contagious! I thought liberals favored health care! THIS IS PART OF YOUR HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA ISN'T IT!!1!)

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

No, see, that at least makes some internal sense, even if from the outside it looks like the steamiest pile of batshit ever to collect at the bottom of a cave. Anyone who thinks that way was a lost cause from the get-go. I'm more concerned about the people who think McCain is liberal because they've heard that he's liberal, and then construct arguments to prove it based on what he "probably" supports, which in turn are based on their knowledge of what it means to be liberal. That's bad logic on a planet of any shape. And it's generally centrists I hear this from, too. I've run across people who have said that if Clinton wins the primaries they will vote for McCain because he's "fairly liberal" and they "don't like Hillary."

(Back to the topic of misogyny in your original post, have you noticed that it's always women politicians who get called by their first names?)

[kddreams.livejournal.com]

I think it's just Hillary who gets that, right? Other women in politics seem to be called by their last name. It's probably because Bill Clinton was so popular or she doesn't want to be too assosicated with her husband or something to that extent.

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

I've always heard "Nancy" and "Condi" as well. With the latter it's especially exasperating, because no one seems up to pronouncing her full first name either. By all accounts, it would really just be easier to call her Rice.

[farla.livejournal.com]

...er, possibly that "Rice" retains some faint ambiguity that you're referring to "rice" while Condi is clearly someone's name?

...faint ambiguity that never affects men. XX chromosomes produce magical confusing waves.

Well, that's what she gets for being part of Republican government.

[farla.livejournal.com]

Ah. Those guys are, I'm pretty sure, lying. It's kind of like last election when people said, "Well, yes, Bush has gotten us into an unwinnable war, and yes, there's no way he can fix this. But, you know, Kerry might not be able to fix it either, so I might as well vote for Bush." Basically, they were already going to vote for one or the other, and now they're rationalizing it. Along similar lines, a lot of "centrists" are basically attention-whore versions of Republicans - they're still voting the same, they just make a big deal out of being sane and moderate and how they're choosing, not just following one party or another.

I'm conflicted about the name issue. It makes me feel pretty uncomfortable calling her "Hillary", but we already elected a guy referred to as "Clinton". Broadly, even the few women who don't enter politics after their husband still took their husband's name - she's not, if you think about it, actually "Clinton", and referring to someone as "Mrs. Husband'sname" is also commonplace in misogyny.

That said, this rule holds true to women in general, even things like naming mountains - If it's named after a man, it's the last name, after a women, first, regardless of if she's married, and choosing to call her Hillary is definitely a dismissive, diminishing choice.

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

That's probably the case for most of them. But it doesn't explain the girl who went to the Obama ralley with me.

[farla.livejournal.com]

Internalized misogyny. Just look at the slash fandom - no one hates a women as much as another woman.

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

Ah. That's probably it, then.