tigerjerusalem

I cannot wrap my head around the economics of the ad industry. They work to make your life worse in the most obnoxious and disgusting ways possible, and they - and any brand that works with then by association - are hated and reviled by that. Yet, it makes BILLIONS and companies spend billions on it, even if you seriously piss off your potential clients doing that (BMW's Spiderman ads, for example).

I don't get it.

EDIT: just to clarify, I don't think I'm a special snowflake immune to ads ffs. I'm talking about the ads in the enshittification spectrum, like the ones that blare inside the media center of your brand new car, the ones that makes sites unreadable, the ones shoved every minute in your 10 minute videos, things like that. But I understand that I may be inside my own ad hate bubble, I really dislike ads in general and I try to avoid them them best I can.

I saw the whole RFK and CDC debacle, how the agency is being weaponized to be antivax, and I cannot for the life of me understand what is happening. What does RFK has to gain with stopping vacines? What does the government gains from it? It cannot be just for show political streght, is it? Just to say "ha, in your face!" and then cause huge troubles for themselves down the road? There must be something they will have right now. But what is it? Money? Contracts? Favours?

And couldn't I just fake the times someone saw my ads to get more money? How is that effective? As an advertiser do I have to just trust the ones seeking ad space?

When I was little I always though that being famous was a merit thing. If a musician was known it was because he or she was excepcional in his/her art: an incredible singer, a highly skilled guitarist, an amazing drummer.

But then I got older and saw a lot of gigs, and a lot of disciplined and truly amazing musicians that nobody heard about... And most were struggling financially, having a side job just to get by. How come? What is missing from them that the "icons" have?

You know, DOGE, fascist president and corporations dictating what people can do, institutions being ruined, laws being ignored. Is there any way out of that or is it over? Is the USA done?

I'm not from the US so all of this is baffling. In Europe and even South America there's tons of mechanisms to stop that from happening, and this kind of meddling would seriously result in arrests. However this is happening in the US with these people going completely unchecked. How is that even possible?!

Seriously, why? And why people don’t think that’s weird?

I'm thinking about getting back to uni to get my Masters and later a PhD. The thing is, I'm out of academia for more than 20 years, and completely at loss. I don't quite know where to begin. Any tips?

And what the hell are all supposed to mean? Also, get off my lawn.

EDIT: I'm talking about "cold", not "cool". I'm seeing it being used along with snowflakes and freezing emoji, sometimes even saying "ice".