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People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and

People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you. You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity. Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs. – Banksy

lifestyleguru 2y ago
When you touch these ads, this will be vandalism and marketing company will dispatch security company on you. Everyone in the ad food chain feels very entitled to litter public space and to violate your attention.
- RCitronsBroker 2y ago
  not getting caught is the secret sauce here, just ask banksy lol
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Towaway69 2y ago
    Reminds me of the old adage „it’s only illegal if you get caught“. That’s also applies to corporate corruption and politics.
- autoexec 2y ago
  > When you touch these ads, this will be vandalism and marketing company will dispatch security company on you. They've even sued TV networks and movie studios for digitally painting different ads over their actual ads in movies and broadcasts.
imiric 2y ago
I wonder what Banksy thinks of online advertising, which goes far beyond "taking the piss". At its best, your personal data is harvested and traded behind your back to tailor ads specifically for your demographic—and increasingly for you personally—and deliver them when you're most vulnerable. At its worst, it is all of the above, plus used by anyone who wants to influence how you think about political and social issues, ultimately corrupting democratic processes and destabilizing governments. It is the perfect medium for propaganda. In either case it is the most insidious form of psychological manipulation we've ever invented. I hope that we eventually collectively sober up about the ways this is harming our societies, and heavily regulate, if not outright ban it. The advertising industry has gone far beyond just promoting a product, and it needs to stop.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  I would hope all advertising (including online) isn't completely banned. It is useful at times for learning about products. But that's all it should really do: promote products (or services), and stop using psychological manipulation techniques and being such a cancer on society. 50+ years ago, the idea of advertisers harvesting your personal data and trading it behind your back to tailor ads for you was completely alien.
  - imiric 2y ago
    50+ years ago we were being marketed cigarettes as "Torches of Freedom", promoted by doctors and cartoon characters. We rightfully banned these practices in most of the world because of the product they were advertising, but the deception and manipulation have been an industry staple, pioneered by Edward Bernays a century ago. The internet is simply a new tool they can use to make their work more sophisticated than ever before. It has also made a lot of people very rich, so I doubt that the advertising industry will accept devolving to a state before psychological manipulation became the norm, and sacrifice billions of dollars worth of revenue. Governments are unlikely to regulate it to that point either, given their symbiotic relationship. This banning of billboards is a good step, but the real problems are online.
seoulmetro 2y ago
Ironic since Banksy is one of the largest indoctrinator out there. People who actually believe in the Banksy lie are unfortunate.
- AmericanChopper 2y ago
  Deeply ironic considering Banksy has made millions plastering his products all over public spaces without any permission from anybody.
  - nine_k 2y ago
    Unlike billboards, a lot of people enjoy Banksy's "products", and consider them art. Also, they are much smaller and less obnoxious, not placed over a highway or on top of a large building.
    - AmericanChopper 2y ago
      A lot of people like billboards too. That’s why Times Square is one of the busiest tourist destinations in the world. None of that has any relation to the irony of Banksy’s quote though.
  - seoulmetro 2y ago
    Uh... he has permission.
- badprose 2y ago
  What is the banksy lie?
  - bertylicious 2y ago
    Banksy doesn't really exist and all his paintings are actually an elaborate marketing campaign we don't understand yet.
  - seoulmetro 2y ago
    Do you know who Banksy is (representing)? That's the lie.
diego_sandoval 2y ago
The same complaint ("I did not choose to see this") could be done about anything that's out in public: Why do I have to see your street art? Why do I have to see your clothes? Why do I have to see your face? Why do I have to see your car? However, it's widely accepted that not wanting to see something doesn't justify vandalizing someone else's art/clothes/car/whatever. Why should it be different for ads?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Doxin 2y ago
  For some wild reason it's basically only permitted for large companies to deface the public space like this. You go try putting some street art out there while the cops are watching, see what happens. In addition to that by far most things people would want to put in public spaces isn't explicitly designed to upset you like ads are. Why do we allow companies to plaster public spaces with veiled insults?
  - G3rn0ti 2y ago
    > „Public spaces“ Usually buildings have private property owners. They agree to putting a bill board on their wall or they don’t. Graffiti sprayers usually don’t ask for permission — and that’s where the difference comes from. In Europe you don’t usually have huge bill board on buildings. Rather you have lots of advertising columns on the side walks (here in Berlin we call them „Litfaßsäule“ named after the local inventor Paul Litfaß in 1854). You could argue they being a nuisance for sure but before the internet and even before radio and tv it was an important place of public communication. Actually they were an improvement because prior to advertising columns advertisers were wildly plastering anything with posters.
    - Doxin 2y ago
      > Usually buildings have private property owners. They agree to putting a bill board on their wall or they don’t. And yet if I agree to have someone stand on my property shouting insults at passers-by I'll get a visit from the police soon enough. This issue isn't as black and white as you make it out to be. Just because the owner of the building the billboard is attached to agrees to have it there doesn't mean no one else is affected. There's already limits to what you can put on a billboard. Banning billboards isn't some radical new category of thing. it's simply moving that threshold down to "you can put nothing on billboards"
hiq 2y ago
> – Banksy Actually, Sean Tejaratchi. It's really unfortunate that the real credit is left out in practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Tejaratchi#Crap_Hound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Tejaratchi#Crap_Hound.

lifestyleguru 2y ago

When you touch these ads, this will be vandalism and marketing company will dispatch security company on you. Everyone in the ad food chain feels very entitled to litter public space and to violate your attention.

RCitronsBroker 2y ago
not getting caught is the secret sauce here, just ask banksy lol
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Towaway69 2y ago
  Reminds me of the old adage „it’s only illegal if you get caught“. That’s also applies to corporate corruption and politics.
autoexec 2y ago
> When you touch these ads, this will be vandalism and marketing company will dispatch security company on you. They've even sued TV networks and movie studios for digitally painting different ads over their actual ads in movies and broadcasts.

imiric 2y ago

I wonder what Banksy thinks of online advertising, which goes far beyond "taking the piss". At its best, your personal data is harvested and traded behind your back to tailor ads specifically for your demographic—and increasingly for you personally—and deliver them when you're most vulnerable. At its worst, it is all of the above, plus used by anyone who wants to influence how you think about political and social issues, ultimately corrupting democratic processes and destabilizing governments. It is the perfect medium for propaganda. In either case it is the most insidious form of psychological manipulation we've ever invented. I hope that we eventually collectively sober up about the ways this is harming our societies, and heavily regulate, if not outright ban it. The advertising industry has gone far beyond just promoting a product, and it needs to stop.

shiroiushi 2y ago
I would hope all advertising (including online) isn't completely banned. It is useful at times for learning about products. But that's all it should really do: promote products (or services), and stop using psychological manipulation techniques and being such a cancer on society. 50+ years ago, the idea of advertisers harvesting your personal data and trading it behind your back to tailor ads for you was completely alien.
- imiric 2y ago
  50+ years ago we were being marketed cigarettes as "Torches of Freedom", promoted by doctors and cartoon characters. We rightfully banned these practices in most of the world because of the product they were advertising, but the deception and manipulation have been an industry staple, pioneered by Edward Bernays a century ago. The internet is simply a new tool they can use to make their work more sophisticated than ever before. It has also made a lot of people very rich, so I doubt that the advertising industry will accept devolving to a state before psychological manipulation became the norm, and sacrifice billions of dollars worth of revenue. Governments are unlikely to regulate it to that point either, given their symbiotic relationship. This banning of billboards is a good step, but the real problems are online.

seoulmetro 2y ago

Ironic since Banksy is one of the largest indoctrinator out there. People who actually believe in the Banksy lie are unfortunate.

AmericanChopper 2y ago
Deeply ironic considering Banksy has made millions plastering his products all over public spaces without any permission from anybody.
- nine_k 2y ago
  Unlike billboards, a lot of people enjoy Banksy's "products", and consider them art. Also, they are much smaller and less obnoxious, not placed over a highway or on top of a large building.
  - AmericanChopper 2y ago
    A lot of people like billboards too. That’s why Times Square is one of the busiest tourist destinations in the world. None of that has any relation to the irony of Banksy’s quote though.
- seoulmetro 2y ago
  Uh... he has permission.
badprose 2y ago
What is the banksy lie?
- bertylicious 2y ago
  Banksy doesn't really exist and all his paintings are actually an elaborate marketing campaign we don't understand yet.
- seoulmetro 2y ago
  Do you know who Banksy is (representing)? That's the lie.

diego_sandoval 2y ago

The same complaint ("I did not choose to see this") could be done about anything that's out in public: Why do I have to see your street art? Why do I have to see your clothes? Why do I have to see your face? Why do I have to see your car? However, it's widely accepted that not wanting to see something doesn't justify vandalizing someone else's art/clothes/car/whatever. Why should it be different for ads?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Doxin 2y ago
For some wild reason it's basically only permitted for large companies to deface the public space like this. You go try putting some street art out there while the cops are watching, see what happens. In addition to that by far most things people would want to put in public spaces isn't explicitly designed to upset you like ads are. Why do we allow companies to plaster public spaces with veiled insults?
- G3rn0ti 2y ago
  > „Public spaces“ Usually buildings have private property owners. They agree to putting a bill board on their wall or they don’t. Graffiti sprayers usually don’t ask for permission — and that’s where the difference comes from. In Europe you don’t usually have huge bill board on buildings. Rather you have lots of advertising columns on the side walks (here in Berlin we call them „Litfaßsäule“ named after the local inventor Paul Litfaß in 1854). You could argue they being a nuisance for sure but before the internet and even before radio and tv it was an important place of public communication. Actually they were an improvement because prior to advertising columns advertisers were wildly plastering anything with posters.
  - Doxin 2y ago
    > Usually buildings have private property owners. They agree to putting a bill board on their wall or they don’t. And yet if I agree to have someone stand on my property shouting insults at passers-by I'll get a visit from the police soon enough. This issue isn't as black and white as you make it out to be. Just because the owner of the building the billboard is attached to agrees to have it there doesn't mean no one else is affected. There's already limits to what you can put on a billboard. Banning billboards isn't some radical new category of thing. it's simply moving that threshold down to "you can put nothing on billboards"

hiq 2y ago

> – Banksy Actually, Sean Tejaratchi. It's really unfortunate that the real credit is left out in practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Tejaratchi#Crap_Hound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Tejaratchi#Crap_Hound.