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.