I use ad blockers and open source privacy focused software whenever I can but occasionally I have to use computers that don’t belong to me or an older phone where my usual applications aren’t installed and seeing all the advertisements just feels dirty and dystopian.
I think the worst ads are the text to speech ones that say “Download this app today”. The unblinking energenic people saying you can make a living at home are probably a close second.
Same, it’s so weird seeing normal TV or using the internet without blockers. Feels like living in Idiocracy.
“Jarring” would have also been acceptable.
Most people are so desensitized to ads that they barely register. So the advertisers ramp up the attention-grabbing. Repeat. So when I actually see an advertisement it nearly knocks me out of my chair because I’m not desensitized anymore.
My sister shared me an Instagram reel for a [brand] bag review and asked me to buy it for her (there’s no [brand store] in her city).
It was such an obvious advertising campaign by the brand, when I walked into the store the same reel she shared me was playing in the store screens
I’m 90% sure I understood what you are saying, but I wouldn’t be angry if you ninja edited your comment to fix some of the typos. Here’s a cute turtle to indicate I’m not trying to be a dick, just gently nudge you cause I want to understand. 🐢
no worries mate, idk why my comment was missing some words, spaces and letters
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Ads nowadays are little more than psychological assault and it can’t be healthy to be exposed to it regularly. My Home Ec teacher back in the day had a whole unit about the different manipulations present in advertisements and it was really enlightening and upsetting. Modern advertising should be banned or severely regulated.
I support significant regulation, but it won’t happen. But having a course like the one you took as well as media-literacy should be required middle-school education with a more sophisticated follow-up in high school. That also won’t happen because then you don’t get the people who vote for GOP pieces of shit. It’s in their interest to have citizens who are easily manipulated.
My father said babies were being aborted basically when ready for birth. I said there’s no way that was happening, said send me a link. One glance at the page and I didn’t need to read the article because of the gimmicks all over plus obviously bogus ads. He had a doctorate of mech engineering, but he couldn’t handle life on the internet. Typing this, I’m horrified to realize that I’m glad he passed when he did and didn’t end up with ever-increasingly wacko beliefs that could have harmed our relationship.
Yeah I agree.
It’s made me very intolerant of ads. It’s kind of surprising how much effort I will invest to avoid ads, and avoid supporting people who make a living from advertising revenue.
people who make a living from advertising revenue
That’s a lot of people, lad…
…just imagine if they were all doing something productive instead.
Props to @DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de for helping to discourage their parasitic behavior and ushering them toward career paths that might actually utilize their potential in a positive way!
yes, I despise ads. It’s gotten to the point where if I’m forced to endure an ad before a youtube video, I’ll mute it and avert my eyes. It feels like a psychological assault out of nowhere. it’s worse at gas station pumps, where I can’t always mute it
Oh right? I never watch or listen to them. Given no other option I’ll even cover my ears and hum. Ads breAk the soul, and I literally feel healthier not being subjected to them.
Wait your gas station pumps have ads!? Where do you live?
United States. there are Ads everywhere. for the wildest shit, too. Ads for medications and prescription drugs are the worst of them, shouldn’t even be allowed… but, ya know… lobbyist money (A.K.A. bribes)
The worst ones I’ve ever seen by far are ads for mobile games. Some, if not the majority, are full of fetish content, gore and other gross and disturbing stuff just for the shock value; most of the “gameplay” that’s shown has nothing to to with the actual game.
Some ads have real people in them act out what (supposedly) happens in-game, those are almost worth watching for their trash value.
Those ads bother me more than most because It’s entirely false advertising. Nothing shown in those ads for the most part reflects the actual gameplay in any way shape or form.
There was somebody who actually released a mobile game that has all of like the fake game mechanics from all the advertisements that you see on those ads and it’s awful but really funny lol
My latest ad-shock was over at a friend’s house. I’ve not had cable since probably '03? They have cable because a parent lives with them and insists/pays. Just having the TV on playing random things felt weird. Weirder still is having the movie interrupted by ads every 5 seconds. And the ads are just gross. The only thing that was decent was using it as a discovery service. The movie, one of the X-Men that was not one of the good ones, was what we stumbled upon. We watched for a bit, then ended up switching to watching it elsewhere to dunk on it. In ad-free, interruption-free, 4k with surround. Paying for the cable experience (which is rapidly the streaming experience) seems entirely anachronistic.
Whenever I see someone’s computer who doesn’t use adblocker it blows my mind. I can’t imagine going back to that shit.
It’s a fun game of too many ads leading to adblockers, which leads to those not using adblockers to get twice as many ads, more people use adblockers, etc. Until the only way for a company to make money on a website is either to sell your data, or charge for the service.
Yay.
The pattern is always the same. No ads - ads - no ads if you pay - no ads if you pay but we sell your data - personalised ads because you pay, and we sell your data.
I put
dns.adguard.com
on their browsers and phones.
I feel you, I’ve been using an ad blocker for so long I’ve lost count of the years. I’m always obliterated by how vapid and meaningless modern ads are, its all psychological hacking which is a violation of our mental sovereignty.
I also feel like the “happy young people, living their best life with our product” style ads help keep people delusional about the current state of the world and where we are heading. Like that “Everything is fine” meme, but the dog has a vr headset on and sound cancelling headphones that constantly chant “The heat you are feeling is good for the economy. Everything IS fine!”.
I agree, it is 100% dystopian.
They Live called it in 1988!
I just recently watched that movie for the first time a month or so ago, and it was so jarring how accurate it was with the subliminal messaging
I stopped over at my parents’ house a few weeks back for a get-together and the TV was on. I nearly felt physically ill at the amount of ads- at one point I saw an overlay ad on top of an actual “commercial” ad. The program that was on was definitely less run time than the adverts that ran in-between short sections of the program.
Did you know that most people won’t notice a ~2% increase in the play speed of shows, and that by doing so you can squeeze in an extra 30 seconds of ad time into a 30 minute block?
Because TV companies know this. Many of them do exactly that.
Some of them push it all the way to 5-10% and it kills the pacing of the dialogue and writing. But hey more ads more money I guess
Me on my way to speedrun my telenovela
I’d heard that somewhere. shiver Normies who watch TV scare me.
I’ve heard that actual football action is about 11 minutes. And yet football broadcasts lasts hours.
FOOSBALL IS THE DEVIL
and really, REALLY boring
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Acceptable sport confused with trash sport, I apologize
yeah, i’ve been trying out different browsers and it’s so so bad. like, they’re pure garbage
don draper era ads actually had fucking thought in there. people made art and worked on the typesetting. now it’s pure AI vomit garbage that means nothing to nobody, nobody along the entire chain of making this gave a single fuck about it, no one that’s ever seen the image has had a genuine feeling come from it other than disgust and doom.
don draper era ads actually had fucking thought in there. people made art and worked on the typesetting.
You’re seeing the past with rose-tinted glasses. Ads fucking sucked as well back in the day, and you’re only remembering the ones that are, well, memorable. And even that means that the fucking advertisers won; because you’re still thinking about those ads - and remember: ads are created specifically to get to your hard-earned money.
but occasionally I have to use computers that don’t belong to me
Do them a favor and install an adblocker.
Most people don’t appreciate it when you install software on their personal devices without their permission.
Boy would this be the quickest way to make sure I never allow you to touch my electronics again.
without their permission.
Nobody said that.
Fine. I don’t appreciate it when assholes inflict ads on me, so we’d be even!
I will occasionally suggest it if I am doing any kind of tech support but I don’t push it. Occasionally it can cause issues with webpages and if they aren’t savvy enough to have an ad blocker already I don’t know if they would have the knowledge of when to toggle it on and off.
The person who was instrumental in the development of modern advertising was also involved in the notorious little Albert experiment. That really says a lot about how unethical modern advertising is on a psychological level. As a psych major myself I am constantly disgusted by how manipulative and toxic advertising is. It actually troubles me how we’ve essentially just accepted this as part of our society now.
“The aim of Watson and Rayner was to condition a phobia in an emotionally stable child.”
I use a VPN which has an excellent ad & bs blocker. But occasionally some sites need me to turn it off to pay for things or whatever and I forget to turn it back on and end up browsing the internet in its normal state.
And wow… welcome to commerce central. It’s not that all the ads are obnoxious though some are, but the quantity of them is out of control on some websites.
To be fair, I’ve found it’s a good rule of thumb that the quality of a website is usually proportionate to the less amount of ads they have.
I also reviewed mobile games for a while and had to play without a VPN to get the same experience most players would get - game ads are the worst. Unrepresentative of the games they’re trying to sell, but also often sexist (veering towards misogynistic), obnoxious and with false endings.
Level 99 mafia boss checking in 😎
proportionate to the less amount
“inversely proportionate”
I gave up trying to get my wife to use anything that blocks ads, and she won’t switch away chrome. When she bakes, she leaves her tablet or phone open, with multiple video ads destroying her battery. Seeing this thing just turns my brain to mush as I don’t see any ads. I don’t know how she puts up with having ten video ads on one page.
Time to set up a pi hole on your local network and kill it at the source!
And then hear 10,000 times how her web site is broken by the ad blocker, and show her again how to disable it for the 10,000th time. Or is that just my hell?
My wife is on board with pretty much all of my shit in this area. That said, do I have exceptions in my pi-hole for a shitty mahjong clone’s ad service? You betcha.
Of all the games infested with ads, your wife is subjecting herself to them for a common-as-Hell type of game that you could get a non-malicious version of from F-droid?!
That’s just downright stupid.
That must be some janky-ass website if it gets broken by an ad-blocker.
Yep! Every damn time.
I can relate. I permanently removed all her devices when I still used it. Now I just use https://ovpn.se/en, it comes with ad blocker built in to the client.
That could mostly be you! 😁
I tried that, it seemed to break some sites she used. So she made me remove it. Yet she complains about Facebook and google knowing what she’s browsing 🤦♂️
My condolences on the divorce
😂
Is she one of those people who does it to support creators? Or is it just too much effort for her?
She doesn’t like change…