By now most of us have heard about the Boston Hoax and how a silly cartoon character guerrilla marketing “botched joke” (ahem) fooled the city of Boston into believing bombs were being attached to bridges around the city.
The “controversy” is also being protrayed as a generational battle, between those bloggers who instantly recognized the Aqua Teen Hunger Force character and the totally out-of-it fuddy duddies who got scared by a guerrila marketing campaign. Dude, you are so out of it.
What is not being discussed to my satisfaction is this entire culture’s divine right to be marketed to. The trend I hate most is the total acceptance on the part of people in our society that marketing everywhere is okay. It isn’t. It’s called mental pollution. Not to mention that these marketers left electric items unattended on the street. That’s just plain old street pollution. I hope I don’t sound like Cheney by asking if someone on the West Bank or Baghdad would have considered this marketing ploy a good idea.
I knew I’d reached total saturation when I saw that the paper on which my son’s school menu is printed was provided by cartoon advertisers. It’s folded so that the ads are on the outside you open to see more ads, then open again to find out what the public school cafeteria is serving for lunch. On topic, The Center for Commercial-Free Public Education exists to fight this mumbo-jumbo.
It’s ironic that the same dudes who think Boston overreacted also think the War on Christmas is cool. Somehow Exxon/Mobil and Wal-Mart are bad corporations, but Cartoon Network? There’s no way I could be pwned by a cartoon, man:
I’ve shown it before but I think today would also be a good day to have Cake’s Comfort Eagle playing in your head. I like that this particular version uses video game/cartoon style characters to make the point.
And there’s more at Adbusters.org.
Before you think I’m a total hypocrite, I know, I know. I’m getting ready to accept limited advertising here at BG. I joined Liberal Prose because I know them, and because I have complete control over which ads appear here. And I haven’t accepted one yet. It’ll be a cold day in hell before there’s a “you have won a free laptop” pop-up over here, that much I can promise.
Alicia Bay Laurel 