On Over Advertising

Advertising-- it is a concept with which we are all familiar and is very prominent in this country, as well as many others. As a person whose philosophical ideals align much more closely with capitalism than socialism, I understand the need for advertising and believe that it should exist in many of its current forms. However, there are a few examples where I feel that advertising has gotten completely out of hand. In some scenarios I believe that advertisements are inappropriate and should be removed.

First off, why are there now full commercials in movie theatres before the start of the movie? Of course the previews can be considered advertisements and have been around for quite some time, but I'm not talking about previews. I go to the movies paying twenty bucks just for the ticket, and then another twenty on snacks, and now I have to sit there and watch ads for cars, jeans, and soft drinks? You have got to be friggin' kidding me. The exorbitant ticket and snack prices apparently don't rake in enough money for these movie theatre bastards. Now I have to pay to watch commercials! At home it's a different story. The commercials are necessary to pay for the programming. But in the theatre, the feature presentation has already been paid for ... by me and the rest of the audience!

In that same vein, I get really pissed (angry, not drunk) when I buy a DVD and I have to sit through ads encouraging me to buy DVDs for other movies. I spent the money, I own it, it's mine. Why should I have to watch all of the fluff at the beginning? And you do have to watch it. Try to hit the main menu button and the words "Action prohibited" appear on the screen. I will grant that most of these DVDs do have some encryption that allows me to skip to the main menu each subsequent time I watch the movie. But it's still a lousy thing to do sticking all of those DVD previews, and sometimes other commercials as well, on a purchased item.

Another thing that gets to me are these little commercials popping up on the bottom of the screen during a program. These are usually ads for a new show on the same network. Well I say to hell with your new show! If you waited until the commercial break to let me know about it, I might've given it a chance. But the star of the new show had to keep popping up in the corner of the screen, waving to me like a moron. I'm now so annoyed at this guy for constantly interrupting my shows that I refuse to ever watch the new program.

And finally, there is another new trend that also causes an interruption while the show is in progress. Apparently the various networks are so desperate to milk every second they can out of commercial air time that they can no longer run the credits at the end of a show. Now the second program begins, and part of the screen is covered by some box in the corner. And what is this box obstructing my view? The credits for the previous show! Give me a break! Were the extra ten seconds that necessary? Now everyone gets to miss part of the screen at the beginning of the next show, which is sometimes a major issue when there are subtitles or some other writing that the viewers should see. So the air time for the credits has been sacrificed in order to squeeze every last second of time out of the show and use it for commercials.

In summary, although I am in favor of advertising, I am against over advertising. In the above mentioned scenarios, perhaps along with a few others, the advertisements are inappropriate and therefore unwelcome. And to all of the big wigs that have a hand in placing ads where they don't belong, I'm just about ready to walk up to you and place my foot where it doesn't belong!