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in hope to get some additional sales That's a copout, like blaming the legitimately elected political leaders in a democracy. _People_ do this to holidays and
by crusso 13y ago
in hope to get some additional sales
That's a copout, like blaming the legitimately elected political leaders in a democracy.
_People_ do this to holidays and special events because they are easily impressed and inclined to follow social trends like lemmings.
If people weren't so impressed by lameness, then the advertisers and marketers would attempt other ways to gather eyeballs.
I shudder when I think of how unreadable I used to find Slashdot every April 1st (back when I was reading it).
- TeMPOraL 13y ago> If people weren't so impressed by lameness, then the advertisers and marketers would attempt other ways to gather eyeballs. It's a feedback loop; one that is arguably easier to break on the marketer's side. OTOH posts such as OP's complaint are attempt to break that loop on the side of people by signalling that well, we're fed up with crap. I doubt any marketer will listen though.
- crusso 13y agoIt would seem to be easier to break the cycle on the marketer's side because you're viewing the problem at the choke point where marketers are ostensibly in control - but really it's a systemic problem with people that would have to be fixed. Fix a couple of marketers and a couple of other marketers step in to fill the void. Plugging a couple of obvious holes in the dike does no good when the dike is fundamentally unsound.
- TeMPOraL 13y agoI think you're right. So this leads to an obvious question: how do we fix the dike?
- fixermark 13y agoIn general or with regards to April Fool's? In general, the same way it's always done: years of social activism, patient stating and re-stating of your case to an uncaring public who is barely impacted by your position, possible civil disobedience (though I have no idea what form that would take in this context... Being told by our employer to roll out an April Fool's project and responding "No, it's a waste of our time and our customers' time, I'm not doing it" perhaps). With regards to April Fool's: I wouldn't bother. It's a once-a-year annoyance, not nearly as disruptive as Christmas. If your goal is to encourage people to knock off nonsense, than I'd easily start with the pagan-holiday-cum-Christian-nativity-celebration-cum-marketing-extravaganza that we hold every December; it's far more disruptive to the economy and people's psychological well-being. If you find April Fool's too annoying, take a personal day and tune out; go read a book, go on a walk, take the disruption of functional communication on the Internet as an opportunity to step back from the Internet. Use the opportunity to look around at the world outside the screen and see what needs improvement; maybe you'll come back on April 2nd inspired.
- crusso 13y agoShort of the hope that medical advances and genetic engineering will bootstrap a dramatic increase in human intelligence... I got nothing but observations on the futility of the problem.
- mbesto 13y agoSimple - stop giving them your attention. If no one paid attention to it, it wouldn't work. If it didn't work, no rational management would foot the bill for it.
- TeMPOraL 13y agoYou're missing the feedback loop. Marketers will keep trying stuff until they find something we pay attention to. And they will destroy its specialness in the process.
- stcredzero 13y agoIf people weren't so impressed by lameness, then the advertisers and marketers would attempt other ways to gather eyeballs There is alien life out there, organized into a federation. Their technology is so advanced to ours that remaining invisible to us is trivial. In order for our species to qualify for membership, we must first survive a series of evil pranks designed to kill or intellectually stultify us in the most darkly ironic way possible. This is why we have automobiles, nuclear weapons, and April Fools.