Pesky, Little Commercials
Posted in Once I Was a Kansas Girl and tagged with Culture, Entertainment on August 4, 2008One of the main reasons I don’t like watching TV is the commercials. I could be watching a perfectly innocent show, and a commercial comes on with scantily clad actresses shimmying around on camera (or it might be for something like ED medication, as was one commercial that came on when I was watching Survivorman with one of the boys I babysit). Of course, it doesn’t just come from the TV, does it? There are ads on most websites, everywhere I look when I’m driving home from work, on the radio, in the mail, and even inside my home.
Regardless, commercials are always trying to sell something. They try to play my emotions, tell me I NEED this product, and tell me that if I was popular/normal I would be using their product. Sorry, but I don’t need that type of message. I don’t want the messages I hear to come from some advertising agency somewhere. I don’t want them coming from my culture. I want them coming from the Lord. And commercials often contain many voices that fight against the Message.
It’d be interesting to take a survey of all the different advertising I come in contact with in one day, and what types of ways they contradict God’s Message. That would take a lot of energy, time, and patience!
August 4th, 2008 at 8:21 am
This is really not in the vein you were going, but a Tivo can solve all your commercial issues…skip right through!
August 4th, 2008 at 8:23 am
You’re totally right, and I take advantage of that whenever I could (half the time I’m watching TV is when I’m babysitting, anyway). However we don’t even have cable, so we’ll definitely not be getting a DVR!
August 4th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Ahh yes…commercials. I don’t know where I’d be without Tivo! You are definitely right though–sometimes, you have to wonder about advertising agencies…
August 4th, 2008 at 10:09 am
It WOULD be interesting to note how many advertisements we come across in one day. True, it would require a great deal of patience!
I’m with you. I hate commercials.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
My biggest pet peeve… why do beer commercials need barely clothed women? Can’t you just a bottle or two, wings and a tv screen with football in the background? lol
That would be an interesting survey. :) Very interesting.
August 4th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
My hot button on this topic is about how they use sex to sell things like tacos, mini-vans, and even deodorant. Not that I think they should use sex to sell anything, but their concept is ridiculous. Have you seen the new Secret commercial with the bride and groom? You don’t even know what they’re selling right away, and it really puts me off.
We live in a very sensual world, and I think most people have become numb to it. Makes you wonder how Noah felt when he was the only righteous man left on earth.
August 4th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
What I can’t stand is that the commercials are five times as loud as the show I was watching, so everytime the commercials come on, I have to go diving for the remote to turn the volume down. They are really obnoxious little buggers. Hey, maybe we DESERVE tv without commercials. I’m going to sue Time Warner – you think I’ll win? Just saw the last post and I had to have somebody to sue because everybody else is to blame right? I mean, why take responsibility for our own actions when we can blame others!
August 4th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Oh, I soooooo hear you! Just one more reason why we limit the kiddo’s viewing – she only ever watches shows on channels like PBS or Noggin, which are commercial free. (Though the PBS shows’ “sponsered by” segments seem a lot longer than they did back in the day…)
We try very hard to keep the kiddo as innocent as possible for as long as we can, which gets increasingly harder and isn’t helped by the ads everywhere. She will walk in when I’m on the computer, and while I block out and don’t even notice an ad in a sidebar, she will ask “Mommy, what are those people doing?” or “Mommy, what is that lady wearing?” or something, and I’m like EEK all over again. Ditto for when I’m reading a magazine – the print ads can be just as (inappropriately, IMO) racy.
*sigh* Welcome to the new millenium, I suppose…
August 4th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
I agree with another commenter…tivo is the answer.
Thanks for stopping by my blog today! ;)
August 4th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
I agree with another commenter…tivo is the answer.
Thanks for stopping by my blog today! ;)
August 5th, 2008 at 1:43 am
I embrace commercials only as a symbol of the free-market economy we’re blessed to live in. And some of them make me laugh too :)! But yes, the do add a lot of non-God focused junk to our heads that we have to sort through, don’t they?
and you are sooooo right—chili day was the best! I’d forgotten about chili day! We had the same thing. I can even remember unrolling my cinammon roll and picking out all the raisins. Didn’t like ‘em ;)!
August 5th, 2008 at 6:32 am
Another thing I hate about commercials is how influential they are on children!! It is amazing and scary at the same time. For example, one day Peter and Emma were driving passed a Wachovia bank and Emma said: “Hey Dad, Wachovia has free checking.” And one day with me I was reading the paper and she saw the Verizon symbol. She told me: “We need to get Verizon. It has TV, Internet and Phone.”
And do not get me on the over-sexualization of our country.