It All Started With Advertising

[ThomWV]

Go find some of the advertising from the mid 1950's or so. Find some old TV clips, some old print material, look at it with just a general eye and you'll see how immature the advertising trade was at the time. They had not found the tricks of persuasion yet, but they would.

All the world
will rant and rave
when you switch
to Burma Shave.

It seems to me that as TV became more widespread the complexity of marketing increased. Somewhere in there psychology got into the game. Someone found out that we could be manipulated. Earlier advertising were descriptive of products but the new advertising gave you something to be envious of.

See the USA in your Chevrolet.

Then it move into politics. Gone were issues, in were feelings. A speech's backdrop was as important as the words, the soundbite replaced reasoned argument. And in the background there were the words. The buzz words, the code words, the manipulation of language expressly for the purpose of misinforming. A state of affairs in which easily disproved misinformation has greater stature than records and documents, first hand witnesses.

George Orwell: "But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought."

And here we are today.

[Deja Q]

1. This'll prove it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krXP_TUZqsk
(eh, okay...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwb9W51j7fo
(yes, the kid would honk Ronald's horn...)

[bbinacan]

2. Clowns have always creeped me out.

Ever see Stephen King's made for TV movie "IT"? Tim Curry was very good as Pennywise the Clown.

[parasim]

3. Yep.

[Karenina]

4. For an education, look up Edward Bernays.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

5. and watch The Power of Nightmares. nt