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Towards a Bra-free Instagram Experience (2017)
- paggle 7y agoMaking you feel bad is a proven effective advertising strategy, and a proven terrible world to exist. There needs to be a pollution tax for advertising the way there should be for carbon. If you deliberately pump a harmful product out into the world you should have to pay through the nose for it.
- justinator 7y ago(2017)
- dondawest 7y agoThis is a ridiculous criticism. Ancient Greeks didn’t look at sculptures of ripped dudes and “feel bad about themselves.” They got INSPIRED and felt GOOD about themselves. Be like an Ancient Greek.
- 2pointsomone 7y agoI don't even know where to begin, my friend...
- dondawest 7y agoYou could begin by choosing to feel good when seeing an inspiring (even “unrealistically” inspiring) image like Michelangelo’s David. :)
- microcolonel 7y agoAFAIK, David is physiologically impossible; as much as a photoshopped ad.
- antisthenes 7y agoWhich parts of him are physiologically impossible? His biceps and thighs are well within human proportions I see daily in regular men. In fact, the least likely portion of him would be the modest endowment, something that a modern man would almost certainly not admit to.
- dondawest 7y agoHis height, for one. Very inspiring!!
- microcolonel 7y agoHe's standing in a way that requires activating his missing muscle. ;- ) Apparently Michelangelo knew it was missing, because it's due to a flaw in the marble. I think individually the proportions aren't crazy, but taken together I think they contradict eachother.
- turk73 7y agoHave you been to the Midwest lately? It's fat people everywhere. Not just fat, obese. The stores practically only sell clothing in the XXXL variety, it's horrifying. The July 4 parade I went to...I needed eyewash. It was just fatties from end to end, some of them were stuffing their faces during the parade. And then we get the Internet where the total opposite of reality is going on, so more gas lighting there. Crazy world we live in. Clown World.
- ViViDboarder 7y agoIs this satire? Because there are a hell of a lot of differences. For one... seeing David in rare moments (you listed this example down below, but it was not ancient nor greek) or any art is very different than the current effects of advertising. In those cases, between long stretches of real life, it’s possible or even easy to appreciate. When bombarded constantly with an unrealistic ideal hundreds of times a day, it has a different effect.
- dondawest 7y agoAncient Greeks were “bombarded by unrealistic image ideals hundreds of times a day” as well while passing sculptures and murals in public places. Yet these “unrealistic image ideals” served as a font of inspiration! The “unrealism” and “idealism” served only to heighten their positive effects on their viewers! Be like an Ancient Greek! What’s next, protesting the Venus of Willendorf for being too thicc? “Unrealistic image ideals” have millions of historical precedents. They are fertility symbols and they can serve to inspire if only you choose to be inspired! Choose to be inspired. :)
- Scoundreller 7y agoThe objected ads will continue until morale improves.
- guskel 7y ago>Do men on Instagram contend with this many half-naked dudes and their butts all the time? I really want to know. In a way, yes. Men are shown ads or muscular, successful men with chiseled jawlines reminding us that we're inferior, our clothes style sucks, how we can't be a man because we don't smoke the same cigarettes as he.
- dmoy 7y agoI don't use Instagram, but yea that sounds about par for the course for ads targeted to me. Minus the cigarette ads, haven't seen those in a long while. Plus they always have better tools than me (gadgets, watches, or actual literal tools), and look better while using them.
- pm90 7y agoSure, but imagine how worse it would be to see the outline of the said muscular men’s penises. Because breasts are similarly sexualized. The muscular man may hurt my sense of self but he does not challenge me to sexually improve or supplement myself.
- viklove 7y agoMuscles are similarly sexualized, so you don't really need to get the penis involved.
- nickthegreek 7y agowow, our ad targeting is vastly different. Mine is mostly nerd related shit.
- pplante 7y agoI agree with the author and wish I could see less ads for bras. I am a male and mostly follow makers and woodworkers, yet I see a ton of ads for bras. My wife doesn't send me too many links to bra companies either. I deleted my Facebook 2 years ago, and my Instagram is only about 6 months old. I used the same email address in both accounts.
- scurvy 7y agoSame here. It's all bras and "slimming clothing" ads. I'm neither a woman nor am I obese. I've repeatedly clicked on the "this ad is not relevant" buttons but they just bombard me with more. I haven't checked instagram in months as a result.
- dice 7y agoDo you have kids? When ours arrived and I started searching for baby and kid related items The Algorithms decided that I must be a woman.
- pplante 7y agoI do. Good point, the algorithms are as biased as societal norms from the 1950s.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- microcolonel 7y ago> says something really depressing about our value as women in the world Well, most women want attractive men to be attracted to them. The advertisers attempt to associate their products with being attractive. Men are advertised to the same way, it says nothing about men's "value to the world". This is embarrassing melodrama.
- excessive 7y agoIt's pretty easy to avoid Instagram and Facebook. Install an ad blocker and the rest of the web becomes reasonably friendly. They'll just keep ratcheting up the obnoxiousness until they find your threshold for quitting. These are "free" products, so if you're still enjoying the rest of the site, then they're leaving money on the table.
- einpoklum 7y agoInstead of stopping use of a commercial-propaganda-infested app like Instagram, the author continues to use it, but shouts at the wind, essentially, on this is annoying. Fatalism, defeatism, subservience.