TLDR - I've gone out of my way to avoid ads whenever possible for about seven or so years now. I believe that exposure to advertising has more of a negative impact on people than most might realize, and I highly recommend considering an 'ad detox' if you have not tried it before.
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For a specific example, starting (or at least accelerating) in the 1990s, cereal and other junk food companies began targeting kids in their ad campaigns. This is abhorrent and has had significant negative health consequences for the population. Eating sugary cereal as one's daily morning meal is akin to snorting a large quantity of cocaine, studies have shown sugar to be as addictive as cocaine, at least in some ways.
Another important example is with shutdown mania of the past three years. I didn't experience this myself, but I heard from others that advertising channels were blasting "New Normal" messaging over and over across all channels at the beginning. I feel that a big reason I have been able to maintain my sanity and coherency throughout this, in spite of incredibly difficult personal circumstances and experiences, is because of my intentional avoidance of ads.
Ads (and media at large) are also used to degrade personal sense of self, which helps create zombie 'consumers ' of the products and services increasingly only provided by behemoth, monopolistic corporations. Women are frequently degraded or portrayed as sex objects to be dominated by men (see also my posts about Nazis/Nazi degradation of women, and about porn). Men are objectified both in a similar sexual fashion and in certain harmful stereotypes, such as the 'emotionless provider'. This is of course reinforced through all mass media including corporate news, movies and shows.
It's also important to note that the effectiveness of ads is only enhanced when people are exhausted and distracted, which many people are to an increasingly significant degree.
I could talk more about the negative influence of media at large (increasingly serving as a parental or guiding figures for youth), but I will leave it there for now.
See also -
Mass mind control through network television -https://rense.com/general69/mass.htm
God bless and PRAY PRAY PRAY!
We dont watch TV in our house, except for very occasional HGTV. It's striking whenever we put it on to see ads - like every 2nd or 3rd ad is for some drug, and half the drug commercials are for AIDS medicine - they'll be gay guys kissing on screen etc, impossible to watch TV now if you have little kids. Also, what % of population has AIDS that it's profitable to run ads to them? Are they anticipating something?
It is impossible to watch tv with an 8 year old. I told him they want to brainwash you with their ads. The really bad ads are on the Hallmark Channel too. The shows are supposed to be G, but the ads are the complete opposite. AIDS ads... Football games now have ads by Ritz Crackers about Trans... Basketball games have really, really bad ads. Like they are targeting young boys... Kids learn by modeling. They copy what they see! If they see it they will copy it. So, we busy ourselves with other things... I bought him a puppy and we play a lot of games, draw, read good books, exercise... I'm tired, but at least I know his brain is free.