your children big up marketing in ADBUSTERS JR

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when i was three or four i had a beautiful, beloved cat. i had named him myself from my parents name book, i thought abt it for a very long time and finally decided on arthur, after king arthur, and the monkey from babar. he would stick his nose into cups and mugs, as cats always do, and one morning i noticed this and said 'the best part of waking up is arthur in your cup!!'. my parents were delighted (they would divorce a year later ha ha) and repeated this for a while, i was very proud for being funny, etc. now when i look back on this i feel a vague embarrassment and shame, and a sort of anger at my parents for letting me exposed to tv commercials at so young that they were actually part of my vocab at such a young age, i can only recall watching pbs and star trek on tv but apparently it got into my brain somehow. but then i also question at this shame, isnt it just symptomatic of a full-on culturally literacy? its not as though i wasnt aware of other phrases and slogans in the arts so why not a coffee ad slogan, certainly my beloved pop artists and pomo authors are happier i knew that shit. but lets not make this a discussion of whether advertising is art (since, duh) or commercials vs culture or whatever, i want it to be kid-specific. if you have kids, do you let them watch television commercials? does it bother you if they seem overly aware of some marketing campaign? and if you dont have lil seeds what do you think youll do with them re: this when/if you do get kids? this is one of those things i fear im a total rockist about

― trife (simon_tr), Sunday, 31 August 2003 20:23 (twenty-two years ago)

kids should be locked away from all external stimuli until they're 18 and then kicked out into the woods to fend for themselves.

i really don't like the idea of kids watching tv, but then again, i don't much like the idea of ME watching tv because i will for hours even though i find it soul deadening and empty. also, how many of your memories of childhood revolve around media rather than interaction with other humans?

― dengo matherton (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 20:33 (twenty-two years ago)

(also adbusters is fucking AWFUL for a variety of reasons.)

― dengo matherton (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 20:34 (twenty-two years ago)

but jess they put hitler in a gap khaki ad parody!! its like mad tv!! except you have to pay seven bucks for it and theres no orlando jones

― trife (simon_tr), Sunday, 31 August 2003 20:36 (twenty-two years ago)

adbusters on orlando jones: 'no, up YOURS!'

― trife (simon_tr), Sunday, 31 August 2003 20:37 (twenty-two years ago)

also, trife i bet you didn't know this but everyone is FAT because of MCDONALDS and NOTHING ELSE

― dengo matherton (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 20:38 (twenty-two years ago)

certainly not biology. or economic status.

― dengo matherton (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 20:42 (twenty-two years ago)

maybe if i had a pantry full of wack gourmet adbusters 'staple' ingredients that ppl always talk abt on ile cooking threads i would be able to gain some weight!!

― trife (simon_tr), Sunday, 31 August 2003 20:44 (twenty-two years ago)

my stomach hurts.

― dengo matherton (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 20:45 (twenty-two years ago)

i feel like chicken tonight.

― dengo matherton (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 20:45 (twenty-two years ago)

i wish i was an oscar mayer weiner

― trife (simon_tr), Sunday, 31 August 2003 20:48 (twenty-two years ago)

i hate adbusters (somewhere on ilx i remember posting my reasons, so i won't recap). to answer the question: my formative encounters w. television consisted (almost entirely) of ruddy (not to my young eyes, obv) vhs copies of the superman movie, star wars and sesame street. all of which, i suppose, contain some form of brand marketing (w. sesame st. being prehaps the least sinister)(or the most? some q's i'm too afraid to ask). my inability to recall any commercials from age 3,4,5 gives me some pause though (ie. what if they're in there DEEP?). i'll have to ask my parents if they restricted my tv time, i suspect they did. not least because south african tv has about 4 channels (we didn't get 'm-net' till i was..8? 9? i still had a soft brain then i suppose but i was prob prematurely cynical), and i suspect not much 'children's televsion'.
will i let my kids watch tv? a wishy washy answer, but prob yes, in moderation. i'm not sure of my answers to questions like "why?" and "what kind of moderation?" and i suspect that's why you created this thread, but i've written too much here not to post.

― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Sunday, 31 August 2003 20:51 (twenty-two years ago)

i'd be afraid to not let my kids watch any tv at all for fear they'd get their assess kicked more than they would already from genetics.

― dengo matherton (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 20:52 (twenty-two years ago)

this isnt a thread abt adbusters!!! and its shit yeah (not the least for that bullshit dj spooky william burroughs remix cd, an utterly unforgiveable concept) but sometimes it has good design, surely as an art student you can get with that mitch!!

― trife (simon_tr), Sunday, 31 August 2003 20:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think a kid has to watch TV to be culturally literate, or be immune from being beat up. I went to school with a kid (who I still know now, btw) whose parents didn't let him watch TV and he seemed as up on anything as the rest of us. I think that at certain points during the grade school years, TV doesn't really inhibit imagination too much. It's when kids get older that it seems more a problem (speaking from my own experience).

― hstencil, Sunday, 31 August 2003 21:01 (twenty-two years ago)

well, puberty is the time when we seem to culturally attempt to stifle creativity en masse anyway.

― dengo matherton (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 21:02 (twenty-two years ago)

"put away childish things" and all that. you're no longer allowed to scribble half-assed pictures of cats just becuz you feel like it.

― dengo matherton (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 21:03 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah sometimes i cringe when i think of how tv addled i was as a pre adolescent but im also pretty forgiving of youth, like jigga says i wasnt proud of it / but i was a child, fuck it

― trife (simon_tr), Sunday, 31 August 2003 21:07 (twenty-two years ago)

just hold your parents responsible

― jonas lefrel (jonas lefrel), Sunday, 31 August 2003 21:09 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah jess I think I even watched way more TV as a teenager than as a child, which if you add to the "stifling creativity" aspect of that time, it's a wonder I got out of bed in the morning.

(then again, I was more creative as a teenager - playing music, painting, writing - than I am now.)

― hstencil, Sunday, 31 August 2003 21:10 (twenty-two years ago)

my teenage years were my absolute nadir (so far) in terms of creativity/productivity. and pre-internet that's saying something.

― dengo matherton (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 21:12 (twenty-two years ago)

The only television I watched regularly as a child was the 10 o'clock news and Johnny Carson (and football). I never encountered any feelings of cultural illiteracy because of that.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Sunday, 31 August 2003 21:14 (twenty-two years ago)

i used to read the editorals page bcz i liked cartoons, i think this was perhaps the origin of SIMON TRIFE

― trife (simon_tr), Sunday, 31 August 2003 21:16 (twenty-two years ago)

top hat- and tudexo-wearing fatcat with dollar signs for eyes smoking a cigar = 'trife', old bearded man naked except for a barrel held up by suspenders = 'nu ilm', obstinant mule theyre both fighting over = 'indie guilt'

― trife (simon_tr), Sunday, 31 August 2003 21:19 (twenty-two years ago)

if you have kids, do you let them watch television commercials?

yes

does it bother you if they seem overly aware of some marketing campaign?

However it does concern me a little that my son (8) has zero interest in reading but likes watching TV (cartoons, action movies etc. only - nothing factual) for hours on end. At his age I was beginning to be interested in things like history and he isn't at all. I'm not sure if it's a problem or not.

― David (David), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I find children's adverts (toys especially) quite frightening - advertising in its purest and most naked form, just shot after hyper-colourful shot of the product, with really fast jingle lyrics and repeated canned joy-sounds and at the end a kid saying "I love you Wiggly Worms" (or whatever). The only other things which is quite as hammer-blow unsubtle are headache remedies (understandably) and shampoo for some reason. The toys adverts work very well on me so god knows what effect they would have on a real actual child.

(Bigtrak to thread)

― Tom (Groke), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I remember being a thorough TV addict when younger and all that, end of the seventies into the eighties in particular. Started to drop off in the late eighties to just news and a few core series and then by the mid-nineties one series and now nothing. I figure having parents who, like mine, set some limits on the one hand and let me run free on the other eventually lets you burn out on the medium on your own. ;-) If I had a kid? Not sure what I would do, but I think I would follow the same general path, though having a Cartoon Network on for 24 hours a day would be a hell of a temptation for all concerned. ;-) What kid's commercials I've seen these days are engagingly loopy enough at their best, but that's the whole idea...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:22 (twenty-two years ago)

i thought the entire point of the kind of advertising was to teach children the valuable lessons of disappointment and dealing with betrayal

viz:
i. small mark s sees ad for MOUSETRAP!
ii. small mark s pesters dad and mum s until they stop saying "but small mark s it is clearly rubbish!" and go and buy him MOUSETRAP! for xmas
iii. small mark s excitedly unwraps MOUSETRAP! and badgers unwary relatives to play it with him
iv. small mark s finishes his one game of MOUSETRAP! and becomes angry punk rock warrior swearing blood vengeance on the CEO of IDEAL

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Mark those are the lessons of Mousetrap not of advertising. Nobody was ever disappointed in a Bigtrak for instance.

― Tom (Groke), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:30 (twenty-two years ago)

ned your 'tvs should just be video monitors' tip is something ive always respect immensely abt you and have followed it myself for three years now!! ditto tom though you arent a movie dork :-/ it helps me out sometimes bcz its hard to like music and not have tv, i wanna watch rap city and the vmas like i did in high school!! whenever im at a house that has a satellite that has mtv jams i just zombify out totally, 'omg theyre showing a gravediggaz video!! omg an hourlong block of mid 90s puffy guest verses!!! omg SPORTY THIEVZ'

― trife (simon_tr), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:30 (twenty-two years ago)

xpost with mark s, mousetrap was wack yeah

― trife (simon_tr), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:30 (twenty-two years ago)

what about Hungry Hungry Hippos?

Seriously though, to destroy my earlier post, I just remembered that this morning when I was in the PhillyDeli on South Street in Philly, I saw this little girl, maybe 4 or 5, who's dad was having a rough time of trying to keep her from picking up and fondling and crying for every piece of candy in the candyrack. I can't imagine that behaviour like that isn't learned from watching television, in some way, tho obv. any link is, of course, unprovable.

― hstencil, Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:34 (twenty-two years ago)

ned your 'tvs should just be video monitors' tip is something ive always respect immensely abt you and have followed it myself for three years now!!

Well thank ya, I appreciate that, cool to hear it's worked out for you as well. I don't advocate it as the instant solution for all ills or anything, we've had our 'why I do/do not watch TV' threads on here before and there are good reasons given on both as to why people think the way they do. Ultimately, I would prefer to do other things -- watching said videos or DVDs, sure, but also reading and writing and, well, browsing the net and posting here and all. :-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:36 (twenty-two years ago)

yes tom as immortalized in the mystikal song 'bigtrak driver'!! hstencil i think all children do like bright colors, technically then it is the advertising of the packaging though, but not NECESSARILY from watching tv

― trife (simon_tr), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:36 (twenty-two years ago)

haha ned my immense overwhelming poverty plays a part in it as well :-/

― trife (simon_tr), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:37 (twenty-two years ago)

(my god we're having a civil discussion)

― dengo matherton (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:38 (twenty-two years ago)

(shit, i probably just jinxed it.)

― dengo matherton (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:38 (twenty-two years ago)

haha ned my immense overwhelming poverty plays a part in it as well :-/

;-) Hey, I regard paying for cable as an unnecessary expense too! But even with it over the past years I was barely touching the darn thing, so hey.

Civility is always good.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:40 (twenty-two years ago)

One problem is that most (well a lot of) kids TV is very keen to not be subversive and presents itself as reinforcing parental messages, providing information and education, having a clear if pretty basic morality system, so for very young kids it's mostly agreeing with their authority figures and can be taken as 'right' (plus also parents watch it too so it must be OK), so the messages of adverts (this is great!) carry more clout.

Writing that it has suddenly struck me that I've been incredibly stupid for ages: when my parents discouraged me from watching ITV it wasn't because ITV was 'common', it was almost certainly because ITV had ads all through its kids programmes and the BBC didn't. Duh!

― Tom (Groke), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Modern Mousetrap games have been re-worked a bit to incoporate strategy in the game, so now they're more than just 1) roll dice 2) hop hop hop 3) return to step 1 until that cage thing falls on a mouse.

One of the emotions of chilhood that feel the most distant to me now is the feeling that something like this (and I mean just the box alone) could embody some kind of holy sleekness and perfection worth throwing temper-tantrums over. I don't how it could've happened.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:46 (twenty-two years ago)

corporate strategy or military strategy? *getting excited again*

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:48 (twenty-two years ago)

mark s do you like RISK??

― dengo matherton (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:51 (twenty-two years ago)

ans = ish

it required EVEN MORE unwary adults, and got v.lame towards the end as i recall esp.if you played it on yr own taking all sides as i wz often reduced to

small mark s: let's play risk!!
even smaller sistrah becky: fuck off poindexter

(ok not the actual words she wd have used but the sensibility is echt)

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:53 (twenty-two years ago)

i just moved the little roman numerals around the board

― dengo matherton (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:54 (twenty-two years ago)

(this is how i played most games, frankly)

― dengo matherton (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:55 (twenty-two years ago)

also the design changed: the versh that a friend had that i liked was much more stylish and austere than the wacky re-tooling mine had undergone

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:56 (twenty-two years ago)

hmm well I guess that's better than me. My older brother would constantly consent to playing boardgames, if only so he'd have the satisfaction of continually beating me.

― hstencil, Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Curiously, a lot of ads for stuff aimed towards slightly older kids promote a kid essentialism (kidizm?) where true feel-wheeling spirit of kid-dom everywhere conquers all that is gray, square and law-abiding (teachers and family) when let loose through the consumption of Product X.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:56 (twenty-two years ago)

FIGHTING CRIME
TRYING TO SAVE THE WORLD
HERE THEY COME JUST IN TIME
POWER PUFF GIRLS

POWAH PUFF!

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 31 August 2003 22:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Recent examples (though I can cite some as far back as the mid-seventies): Chester Cheetah in the Cheetos commercials appearing as a substitute teacher and taking every out to a roller-coaster; the superdestructive Honeycomb thingamajig kids turn into when eating the cereal; Ronald McDonald putting a winsome smile on the big ugly mug of a cafteria lady; "You know Apple Jacks don't actually taste like apples?" "Yeah, so?" (Popists!)

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 31 August 2003 23:00 (twenty-two years ago)

god i HATED those lil apple jack bastards!!

― dengo matherton (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 23:01 (twenty-two years ago)

"we eat what we like" = what every kid wants to say around dinner time

― dengo matherton (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 23:02 (twenty-two years ago)

(best kids tv ad slogan of recent times: pop tarts, "feel good, go pop.")

― dengo matherton (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 23:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Instructions for modern Mousetrap.

I can't really be very specific about the differences between the old and new versions of the the game since I haven't played it in ages...and frankly, I really didn't PLAY it at all, I just set the contraption thing up and knocked it down and that was my fun. I don't remember any "Cheese Cards" though.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 31 August 2003 23:05 (twenty-two years ago)

i watch fucking unholy amounts of TV and still love Adbusters so, umm, big shout-out to the 5th Ward Posse I guess

(although I did write hate mail to Adbusters after their criminally dumb issue about pharmaceuticals seemed to suggest that ADHD was a convenient diagnosis to further the Big Pharm agenda [not that there is no Big Pharm agenda, 'cause there is])

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 23:05 (twenty-two years ago)

haha michael i like when its all b&w and dull before the uper awesome kids product comes in and theres usually a record playing like verdi or rites of spring or something 'boring' and then it goes VRRRWPWP and gets scratched off the turntable and replaced with bangin techno!! like wtf do kids even know what sounds records make except from those ads

― trife (simon_tr), Sunday, 31 August 2003 23:11 (twenty-two years ago)

you kids want some EXCITEMENT, stuff THIS IN YOUR STOCCCKINGGGGG

― dengo matherton (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 31 August 2003 23:14 (twenty-two years ago)

three years pass...

http://www.ipgbook.com/small/1550225618.jpg

― and what, Thursday, 14 June 2007 13:55 (eighteen years ago)

poor little cassette

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 14 June 2007 13:57 (eighteen years ago)

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