Monday, October 19, 2009

Media Take Over- People Are Catching On


So this may not be the best picture ever because I had to scan it, but I thought it was really necessary to blog about. This "Mutts" comic-strip (by Patrick McDonnell) was in last Sunday's Newsday (10/11/09). Looking at it, I think it is pretty self explanatory. Advertising has taken over everything! McDonnell is not using his comic to advertise something, but to show how ridiculous the industry has actually become.

Seeing this made me automatically think of the hot summer days lying on the sand of Robert Moses field 5 and seeing the planes fly over head with big banners advertising a type of beer or a sale at a local store. It never really clicked on how absurd that really is until now.

Leave it to 'man' to take something as serene and natural as nature and inundate it with media. Thinking more into it, I realized how advertising is literally EVERYWHERE.

Driving into the city, I get so excited to go shopping or see a play, and for half of the ride there I'm stared at by hundreds of billboards. Listening to the radio, I hear the hosts talk for twenty minutes about their phones before I realize they are trying to sell me something. It seems like companies will buy whatever space they can to get their name out there. Before we know it cars won't be available in black or red, they will come in either a McDonalds, or a Wendy's. Clothes (other than advertising the store or brand that makes them) will have pictures of new inventions that minimize the use of your washing machine, or the blanket with built in cup holders. Competition in the advertising world has yet to make its peak, which is frightening because no one will know how far it will go.

So I COMPLETELY agree with what McDonnell is trying to say. This industry has outstretched itself so much that there is nothing that it can't do. Just like Mooch (the cat in the comic-strip) I have to ask... Where does it end?

2 comments:

  1. Turns out you're closer than you think. There are some companies out there that WILL pay you to cover your car in magnets, some of them will even repaint the entire car.

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