I am taking a great class called Leading Strategically. The professor is very human, and spends most of the class engaging in class discussion. We began class for today talking about the Superbowl as a strategic entity. The class demographics are about half sports coaches (for the schools sports teams) half MBA majors and three social workers. Without going to deep into the full conversation I'd like to tap into a line of argument I presented to the class.
I began my shouting out what I thought.
What is the ad industry? It began when the United States imported the propaganda tactics that the Russians were using to make revolution in in the 1910's. The United States first experiments were in using posts to spread patriotism and gain buy in for World War I. Then the Ad industry spread to the major corporations. An ad is essentially a thing that gets someone to do something. The Russians used it to make revolution, then later to control the temperament of the masses. The US has always had two primary goal; to make money and manufacture consent.
So what is the Superbowl for the Ad industry? It is a launch program to dig their ads into the public consciousness/unconsciousness. The Superbowl is not just a game of football. It is an economic and social event. Zillions of people globally celebrate this event by going to the game, tail gating, excessive drinking, creating zillions of individual and collective memories around this event. Therefore, a commercial isn't entering into someone's mind haphazardly, its constructively placed into our leisure, social and private time. The event is then reinforced socially through intense, invasive and complex social pressures where many are sharing in constant dialog online and in person (or as Foucault would say discursive practices) for weeks after the fact. The media then constantly engage us around the games and it's ad's for weeks; reviewing and making/continuing controversy. Solidifying the event and the ads in our mind and memories. Not just with the fact that you watched a commercial, but that you watched it in a socially relevant and emotional way, as if you were part of some global community sharing a special moment. Let's take For instance, take the Coke-a-Cola ad: (I had a link to the ad here but the video Got Removed From YouTube. Go Capitalism!)
Now what I find truly insidious about this ad is that it tells a story about a delusional view of America. It's as if our relationship with the purchasing of a can of coke, somehow brings about or at the very least is related world peace. It's as if drinking the sour carbonated liquid unites us in some kinda collective experience. The story coke tells, is a story where your relationship to coke is a unifying force in the world that solves Racism, Classim, Sexism, Immigrant-o-phobia, Islamophobia, and Homophobia. This simply has nothing to do with the United States that we live in. We live in a country with the highest prison population in the world, huge disparities in class, race, and gender. Same sex couples are fighting on a daily basis just to have a scrap of dignity, and live their life. So why would coke portray such a delusional world? Because by and large the American citizenship have already bought into this vision of radically diverse melting pot. It is an easy idea to sell. Put simply the coke utopia is the white male privileged perception of what the world looks like. This perspective is important for coke because it is one of the key dominate ideologies in America. So deeply rubbed into us by the education system, and media system, that thinking outside the 'melting-pot' ideology is down right traumatic.
The question I had for the class was: Ok, so ads serve a purpose of motivating to someone to do something. Where does authority come into play? I mean zillions of TV commercials, billboards, posters, flyers, events, Superbowls have plaster Coke-a-Cola so far into the American ideology that Coke can have the audacity to make an ad that implies that it is a fundamental sustaining the dream. Are we all just lemmings, or are people making rational free decisions about what they would like to drink?
On another level, what is the moral and health risk involved in Coke? Because we are never talking about one individual and their choices, but zillions that make a long series of choices that make Coke the zillion dollar a year money machine that it is. On a long enough time span, it a product that could end up fattening the human race to dangerous proportions. The magic trick here is how Coke has pulled the cover over peoples eyes, to passively ingest their advertising in such a way they can view an advertisement like this and not see the economic and political agenda, or to see the economic/political agenda in a way that obfuscates from cokes profit motive. Its nice, and cute like kittens playing a game of football. It is compelling us avoid critical engagement with the world and just ENJOY!
It's 3:28 am. I woke from a nightmare and dehydration. I rarely remember my dream. Often times, when I do I went to bed at an appropriate time and did not go to sleep out of exhaustion. Last night I finished a bottle of wine and went to sleep four hours early than usual.
I have felt this sense of dread for the last couple days. The weight of existence. What good are we as a species? What merit do we bring to this earth?
The nightmare was about work. I arrived at the office with my typical attitude of hoping for the best and expecting the worst. Upon unlocking the door to my office I found that the room had been stripped. All my posters and photos had been removed from the walk and piled on the floor. Inspecting the walls I found they had a new coat of paint that had been poorly applied. There were inconsistencies in the coat of paint. Missing spots, and it was if rather than going up and down with a paint roller each time the paint was applied with a different angle.
Thursday I presented on the Id, Ego, and Superego for my Clinical practice class. My plan was to explain the Id, Ego, and Super ego via psycho. I began by drawing the Bates's House on the whiteboard with a blue dry erase marker. I turned to the class and asked if anyone had scene Psycho. A handful of ladies raised their hands. I called on a couple people to explain the plot. Then I explained that in some psychoanalytic film theory floors of the home are designated by Id, Ego, and Super Ego. I wrote the word Super Ego next to the second floor of the house where I had drawn the silhouette of Norma Bates. Norma is up there overseeing and regulating Norman's moral compass. Pushing guild and savage categorical imperatives to support his disassociation and demonetization of women. This constant pathological voice compelling him via guilt is Normans superego. Norman is most 'normal' when he is on the ground floor of the house, but he is having difficultly managing the pushes …
Caroline is a girl who is unhappy with her parents. They aren't paying attention to her. Looking out from her beady eyes, Caroline sees a world populated by adults lost in the projects who push off play time into the future. Impatient Caroline wishes for more caring parents that give into her narcissistic only child dreams. Caroline wants to be the center of everyone's universe, and cannot feel normal without the constant self-affirming gaze that verifies her importance. Coraline finds a door which opens to a brick wall. Her mother reason's that the wall was build when the building was split into three apartments. But as Caroline notices this does not sufficiently explain the wall. “Why is the door small then?” Or, why would they build a wall to separate apartments when the apartments were separated vertically rather than horizontally. What's with the door and what is the its purpose? Is a justified question due to illogical architecture.
I am taking a great class called Leading Strategically. The professor is very human, and spends most of the class engaging in class discussion. We began class for today talking about the Superbowl as a strategic entity. The class demographics are about half sports coaches (for the schools sports teams) half MBA majors and three social workers. Without going to deep into the full conversation I'd like to tap into a line of argument I presented to the class.
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