The joy of advertising

My dislike of advertising grows stronger by the day – partly because of the corrosive and limiting effect it can have on people’s lives, worldviews and aspirations, but also partly because of the insulting, manipulative rubbish that the industry continues to pump out. Take this new McDonald’s ad for example – peddling the idea that
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Ghastly xmas ads

It’s bad form I’m sure to put a second consecutive post from the same person but Charlie Brooker does know how to skewer the shallowness and depressing nature of advertising with some humour – certainly better than me ranting angrily about it for several lines! Here is his article about the glut of ’emotional’ xmas
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Consumerism for babies – part 2

A few months ago I wrote about the highly questionable presence of Bounty packs in maternity wards (see this post for a reminder) and the unpleasant form of ‘captive consumerism’ they seem to enforce on new parents. In the last week the Independent has also covered this issue in an article that explains more of
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Consumerism for babies

It’s been a while since my last post because of a particularly busy period of work and the arrival of a new member of the Docwra household. The process of having a child has opened a door to a whole new world that many non-parents may be unaware of – and consumerism seems to have
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Not the end of consumerism

This article in the Business section of the New York Times is interesting, as it illustrates the difficulty that the mainstream media still have in coming to terms with the idea that living simply and buying less can make one happy. There are glimmers of clarity in the article – for example, the opening paragraphs
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