It clearly has gone beyond the realm of fantasy when shampoo is being advertised with having hydrating qualities. I thought it insulting many years ago when shampoo selling, directed mainly at the mane of the female, had those pseudo scientific linguistics added. VO5 or HO2 Carotene added for free and TO YOU. Now we have shampoo for curly hair, shampoo for straight hair, and even for baldness or ‘no-hair’, Shampoo for the bald? All this is now called ‘hair therapy.’ Are women taken in by all this? Perhaps they do? Advertisers now go through a lot of research before spending millions on ads. They understand that the word ‘therapy’ is immensely popular. Many are proud to admit they are in ‘therapy’, busy solving deep-seated and clear-sighted un-solvable problems, all clearly the fault of great uncle Herman with his sweaty feet. So, it seems logical and a short step to link shampoo with ‘therapy.’ Next time, I stand under the shower I’ll try and avoid ‘hydrating’ my hair. You just never know what damaging hydrating chemicals are in it.
Of course, stupid ads are even worse for the male. “Have women screaming in your bed, begging for more” is included in an ad for some Goat tablet. There are pills for penile enlargements with promises of a never ending erectile stamina with gigantic phalluses to make the ladies smile. “Make your love last longer” was on a gigantic bill board near Sydney’s airport some time ago advertising some inhalant taken through the nose. They should put that sign inside The Family Courts.
However, the blue ribbon for nonsensical advertising has to be awarded to the commercial TV channels. It was bad years ago. Now those channels just show ads with, if one is lucky, some short bits of film segments in between. There is no escape.
In some countries, Holland included, TV and Radio had no advertising at all. It was simply banned. However, as a triumph of money over good sense, the captains of industry and money making started both commercial TV and Radio stations off shore in international waters on boats and a tsunami of junks has followed ever since. The battle is lost now, but at least, they still have the sense in Holland, when we were there last, to show the ads in between programs.
Now, I hardly watch those moving pictures at all, ABC including. The modern way of making TV is to include hissing or amplified humming noises. Is this to make it real and to hide the lack of anything of substance? A kind of stupor inducing white noise with sometimes a few words intelligible but mainly a mixture of ssssssssssss…real cools…..zzzzzzzzz. Yeah…..love me…….. suck…..gggg nowrrrrrr……..fuck youhhhhhhhhhhh…………..wow, aaaaaaaaa……kind off…….yeh know…
It’s all so much Ennui, Weltschmerz, Malaise, and Accidie… How come English language is so poor in having words describing spiritual poverty?
More moronic TV is on ABC3. There is this irritating couple of pre-teens who can only think of fun by throwing buckets of paint over each other or rolling their eyes, twittering their eyelashes. It’s just bullying and the noise is unbearable. Who watches this stuff….?
There is one program that has a group of young people in a wild and dangerous jungle. At least, they try and overcome adversity by climbing trees, abseiling cliffs or roping across a river. It might be an English production, but at least it tries to entertain by adventure and includes nature. All taken together though, I find the fare for both young and old on TV clearly declining. Or, most likely,…… am I getting a bit passé?
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