Disclaimer: the views expressed on this site do not nessecarily reflect those of my employer
Monday, November 18, 2002
My personal assault on advertising continues. I called Verizon this weekend to complain about their pop-up ads on Yahoo. First they blamed Yahoo for selling them the ads. Then they said, "well, this is the first time anyone has complained". Ok people. Take back the Internet or stupid companies like Yahoo and Verizon are going to keep wrecking it. I'm adding to my blacklist of stupid companies that use pop-ups. Sorry I have to add Expedia to the list now too.
A telemarketer called my house and I used my usual, "please put me on your do not call list" response. This time I got, "No, you don't want that. You want a new mortgage". "No", I said, "I want to talk to your supervisor". Well, they wouldn't tell me who they were and eventually they hung up on me. I can be a bit of a jerk sometimes (can you tell?).
On the way to work I saw one of those trucks that is actually just a billboard. This one was parked on the overpass of route 128, blocking part of the on ramp. WTF? I called the cops on the idiot.
The billboard thing reminded me of an awesome story from Adbusters. An artist wanted to find out how effective advertising can be so she convinced someone to let her put up a bunch of billboards with slogans like: "Nothing. What you've been looking for". Thousands of people called up wanting to know where they could get some Nothing (TM).
If there is one thing that my father taught me, its that the world around us was created by people. It was all somebody's good or bad idea that they made reality. Don't take this stuff for granted. Wake up. Make some noise. Complain if you don't like something. Or as George Clinton would say: "Sh*t, Goddamn. Get off your ass and jam".
