In recent months, I've noticed a humongous change in advertising both on television and in the newspaper. ind you, I don't study ads and I don't want that much tv, but during the day I'll sometimes have the tv on when I eat lunch (because it's easier to wipe melted cheese of the remote than off page 32). I also subscribe only to the Sunday edition of our remaining local paper because the cost for daily delivery went up something like four times in less than two years and went up a lot. If I have change I will sometimes grab a paper from one of the boxes on the street. They cost fifty cents; if i wander 20 feet into a drugstore and buy the exact same newspaper, it costs seventy-five cents. I have seen such blatant rip-off in a while - hmmm, probably right after that strike where they didn't increase the daily price but they did charge more for delivery.

Television is groaning under the weight of ads for competing car insurance companies. Other ads claim that if you attend THESE classes, you will have a job you love for life. Yeah. Checking out the major player here, one notes that in '05, they paid out three-quarters of a million dollars in a grade inflation scheme that would bring in grant money.. More recently,(this is my favorite line of the day) "[i]n one instance, a student got 100% on a computer forensics assignment by emailing the professor a noodle recipe" Just recently, teachers were found to be lying about student attendance so they could get cash bonuses. Right. These "for-profit" schools abound too. Sounds just like the true college experience.
Today i heard an ad for some sort of weight loss green tea. Right. It had "thermogenic" properties. It did not explain how that worked but it's the old "fat-burning" thing. Which of course works because of course no one is obese because of course all this crap works, right?
Sunday's paper did it too. i mean, do people even THINK this stuff through? Are we desperate? Are we stupid? Do we think words like "thermogenic" make some half-assed drink more scientific?

An ad in the paper on Sunday offered a fabulous opportunity to buy into a new business, a franchise thing. For some reason it caught me and I read the entire HALF-PAGE advertisement and here's what I don't know. WHAT IT IS. I know it's a "trusted brand" (never heard of it before in my life by the way) that it's been a "local business phenomenon in New York City" since 1987, that it's very popular because of "exposure from celebrities, supermodels" and tv shows. I know that it is apparent;y a "light frozen treat". I know what the photos in the ad WANT me to think it is. I don't. I do not know what it is made from, what it is made of. For all I know, it's a petroleum product. Because it never says anywhere in the ad. They want you to buy into selling it without ever saying whether it's made out of recycled tin or actual food. While the website for this crap claims it's made from "the finest ingredients" apparently this information was not deemed necessary to someone wanting to sell the crap. It's allegedly "creamy and delicious". And so I looked it up and it's made of disgusting crap. sorry but it is. I don't want to eat "water, nonfat milk, sugar, corn syrup, cream, guar gum, locust bean gum, carrageenan, vanilla, and lactase." These are "your finest ingredients, boys and girls? But want to eat it or not, what I really find FAScinating in this ad for franchise wannabees is that they never come close to telling you what the hell it is. And how many people who went to this "seminar" knew that. Or noticed? or care?

Finally there's the back pain ad. I hate these hate them so soso much. I live with back pain and I hate people who advertise as if this is diet tea with thermogenic foo foo. This fabulous treatment? "Deep penetrating photonic light energy biostimulates your cells..." which, says the ad will reduce pain, increase circulation and trigger healing. I do konw that increasing blood flow, circulation can ease pain, I DO. It's why massage can help. Why we use topical creams. That's what they do. i won't argue the efficacy of this treatment in this ad. I will argue how it's presented.

Many years ago, I had a bumper sticker that rad "Eschew obfusccation". You see what I'm saying? Where's the clear language? Where's the meaningful plain explanation. "photonic light energy" and "biostimulation"? it just BUGS me that this stuff is written to sound impressive, to be all sciency.