I read words in front of me, if they're in front of me, and think about what they actually mean, from a purely grammatical perspective. With many ads, that's al

I read words in front of me, if they're in front of me, and think about what they actually mean, from a purely grammatical perspective. With many ads, that's already bad enough. Then there's the attempted manipulation versus the reality of the product. I apply this hairsplitting to everything I see, and where the intentions of what I'm analyzing are benign, it's fun -- for me. Even when I "find mistakes", it's more a "it's fun to think about things" thing. But when the intentions are not benign, I use it to fuel my vigilance. > To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle. -- George Orwell > Because we are lied to all the time, in ways so routine they are beneath conscious notice, even the most direct lies are losing their power to shock us. -- Charles Eisenstein, "The Ubiquitous Matrix of Lies" I never accepted or adopted said routine, when I was a kid, my mum often said "you're always thinking", and hating most ads is just a natural extension of that. I just have the one gear, and I haven't tired of it yet. > Sometimes the design of the ads are interesting, even if the product they're selling is not. Sometimes we can learn interesting things from a virus, I still don't want the disease. Most of what I could learn from well designed ads, I could learn from elsewhere, too, and none of it is essential, versus the essential things (like words meaning things, logical/critical thought, people behaving, talking and thinking like adults, and treating their clients as such -- and so on) most ads seek to undermine.