Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Ban the Ads


In Canada (did I mention I was in Canada? No? Well I was; as a matter of fact quite recently it was, why, only last week...) there was a big campaign on to boycott all puppy and kitten farms, an easy one to sign up to, I mean who wants to be presented with puppy steak in a restaurant? It'd be tiny (possibly in more ways than one).

I am starting an Ad boycott. Ironically in Can Ad a (see what I did there), they had very few ads. I mean no ads - when you were walking out of the plane and down to Customs/ passport control. No crappy catchphrases up on the walls speculating on what you're first text home will be, or what bank you should join, or worse - that your workplace should join. It was weirdly relaxing - I mean like - nothing foreign jumping through your brain, as you walk along, alone with your own thoughts, and your fellow travellers. It was cool. People aren't alone with their thoughts enough - I'm the world's worst to be always looking for diversion - see the length of the bloglist if you don't believe me (bet mine's longer than yours), but it is nice to sit and let yourself just float for awhile, leave your head alone to do it's own thing. It works better like that sometimes - just read Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, or Dorothea Brande's Becoming a Writer.

Anyway - Boycott all ads. Don't look at em - imagine you're a horse with Blinkers, say nay to the billboards, pretend those smiley feckers on the poles are all works of art or philosophers. Don't walk to the shops for coco pops just cos the monkey said you should. In fact don't buy anything at all in your weekly shop that you have seen an ad for. And most of all - drink Coca Cola (ok that's just a test - the last bit, to see if you've been paying attention though sadly there is such a beverage within my immediate vicinity and I probably now will sup it - Frailty thy name is woman!)

9 comments:

Colm Keegan said...

shouldnt horses say neigh to the billboards?

Niamh B said...

so they'd have you believe...

Totalfeckineejit said...

But surely the monkey is right isn't he? I mean a talking monkey is not your average monkey and if he thinks cocoa pops are tops cos they turn the milk brown , who are we to argue?

Niamh B said...

No the monkey is not right, monkeys are never right, unless they're the 1000th one on the typewriter and even then it's questionable.

(And it's not that they turn the milk brown - they turn the milk chocolatey! But yeah talking, singing and even t-shirt wearing are relatively rare attributes in a monkey, so maybe you have something there)

Niamh B said...

Just realised it is brown (not chocolatey) - darn it!
Too much sun

Anonymous said...

I remember when I lived in the Country. When I traveled back to Dublin, I would read everything that was put in front of me, mostly ads,I tried to ignore them. But they work, you can't ignore them, you can try, but their very, very clever.

Jb

Niamh B said...

We're cleverer than them JB!! well; only if we spend our time properly ignoring them, (the ads) and not obsessing over the correct wording in them (the ads) (it was "so chocolately they even turn the milk brown" and for years I thought it was saying "they even turn the milk round" and that explains all the confusion)

Anonymous said...

Strangely, I have trained myself over the years - I never even see ads. On tv or in the papers. You know when somebody says, 'Did you see...' I am always the one who didn't see it.
But then, I also never heard a baby crying for a night feed (well, not until I had given up hope of himself hearing it first). I could also get up, feed and change a baby without even waking up. Tho' I admit I had dreadful trouble finding the wretched thing the next morning, never knew where I'd put him down, in the cot, in the bed...wherever. But they grew just the same. Oh there's a lot to be said for a closed mind! DQ

Niamh B said...

I'm always a bit glued to and suckered in by ads (and everything in general).
Last night I watched an awful film set in San Fran, but the city looked nice, so I said to himself "I'd live there", he shook his head warily.
I actually did walk to the shop once too, many years ago, at the monkey's prompting - which was a big thing when you consider how I try to minimise my exercise taking.