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a long while ago i was considering a centrally monitored physical security system for my home. that was long before you could easily host your own security came

• photonthug 2y ago
  This is so completely reasonable, and yet so unexpected that the "please leave now" actually reads like a joke punchline. In the last few years ads have become remarkably dystopian and unapologetic about it.. I mean it was always "No one will love you if you don't buy our thing!" but they didn't quite come out and say it before. The "less likes, more love" campaign comes to mind as ironically appropriate. I'm not in a position where I deal with actual human salespeople that often, but we're all products of the culture we're embedded in. So I assume that's gotten more masks-off crazy and feral too.. just very openly trying to find your anxieties and squeeze.
  • rbanffy 2y ago
    > I have no time with shady sales tactics and manipulation. i can totally relate to this article. Sometimes I recommend people to go to high pressure sales meetings, such as the ones where they try to sell time-shares (is that still a thing?). They'll pick you up at the hotel on a limo, and offer you free tickets to some shows if you go. It is insanely annoying, but it's a great exercise on your ability to say no under psychological pressure. They will try to attack you at your most core values and the moment you realize it is an attempt to manipulate you, you develop some immunity to it - the said ability to say "leave now". On the time-share, the poor third (!) salesperson who tried to convince me surrendered to the math - US$100K for a week, for a ~300K apartment was about US$ 5 million, which was the going price for apartments in the very fancy building next to it. At that point they relented, gave us the tickets (they were sold out at the venue) and drove us back to our hotel.
  • silverquiet 2y ago
    Maybe two years ago I got a youtube ad that was literally an infomercial telling me that my penis was too small to please my partner, and presumably trying to sell me something for that, though I could not watch long enough to see where it was going. I was only able to make it as far into the ad out of incredulousness that it was actually as brazen as it seemed. It was mostly just funny to me, but also sort of amazing that YouTube was showing me such bottom-of-the-barrel ad content.
    • photonthug 2y ago
      Pretty gross and awful, but I guess not especially new. What feels like a new thing in the last ~5 years is when you're browsing some actually reputable news site, and literally reading high brow analysis about misinformation and vulnerable populations, and meanwhile also still getting hammered with ads around the borders about "one weird trick seniors should know". Now that's dystopian. There was a Reeses commercial about "your devices are listening to you" for example, and other stuff that I probably should not boost by describing specifically. But basically there's a new form that's pretty openly self-aware about "yeah this is unpleasant to watch, but what are you going to do, actually turn off your TV? just give us your money." When this stuff first appeared I thought the writing was just subpar, or that maybe the idea was that the public just can't parse anything more subtle. But it's more that anxiety still sells even if you're being blatant about stuff, and if you can create anxiety that isn't actually present yet, then you might be making society sicker but you're still making your ads more effective
• deleted 2y ago
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