I hate advertising. It is a necessary evil, perpetuated to excess. It drives me crazy.
The Merits
Before I point at all the pieces I hate, I find it important to examine its finer features.
How is one to find something that they don’t know exists but would find especially useful? How is one to even know that there’s something they’re missing out on?
- Numerous times has an advertisement proven useful to me - there are goods and services that I’ve been pleased to know about that I would have no way of discovering except by accident, or until I didn’t need them anymore. I find a lot of video games through advertising, for example, and the water filtration and softening for my house.
- A good product needs to let people know of its existence amid the sea of competitors so that its employees can make a living.
That’s where the list ends. If I think of more merits, I will add them with timestamps to be clear when the list updates from Two (2) Whole Items.
The Concessions
I live in a world with advertising, much as I rail against it.
I accept that when I walk outside, I will see advertising in the form of various signs and billboards.
I understand that opening my mailbox will lead to me seeing junk mail.
I get that various webpages need to pay for their hosting and other services, and advertising can be an effective way to pay for it.
When I purchase a product and bring it into my home, I accept that there will be a logo on it.
In a movie theater, there will be preview ads for other movies, as well as advertisements for the concession stand.
When I watch videos at home, I accept that there will be sponsorships, and some services will have ads, much as I hate it - I can pay for YouTube Premium to remove them, but I’m at least warned that Hulu will roll ads despite paying for them.
At the grocery store, products are splashed with their labels and placed where I can see them - a rare useful circumstance.
Product placement is a pretty harmless one, and can even be funny if done correctly. (GO WATCH KUNG POW! ENTER THE FIST!!)
These are things that I must deal with if I want to participate in society.
The Crimes
The above examples are non-intrusive or accepted as the cost of participation.
If you come to knock at my door while I am going about my life at home, and you are trying to advertise to me, I will be upset, non-receptive, and maybe rude.
Do not come to my house to tell me “you were just doing some windows in the area and were checking if anybody else was interested”. Don’t come and try to sell me solar panels - a bunch are scams, and have all sorts of complicated leasing that I’m not about to make a decision about on anyone’s timetable but my own. I am not interested in someone coming to my door to ask if I’ve Heard the Good News.
Hell, I find it kind of irritating to have the door hangers for local restaurant menus, though at least that one’s not an interruption.
If I’m in a grocery store, or walking to a place in a mall, and someone’s trying to sell me on a product or service while I’m doing other stuff, the politest thing I will say is “I don’t like being advertised to.” I’m not just wandering around with my thumb up my ass, nothing to do. I’m here because I’m doing something, and you are interrupting me.
That’s the worst of it.
Popups when I’m trying to read a breaking news article, those electronic billboards that are trying to outshine the damn sun, stuff that tries to stop or distract me from doing what I’m doing is the most awful thing.
I have not invited or accepted it. It is antagonistic, and it will make me hostile to the product being advertised.