I use ad blockers and open source privacy focused software whenever I can but occasionally I have to use computers that don’t belong to me or an older phone where my usual applications aren’t installed and seeing all the advertisements just feels dirty and dystopian.
I think the worst ads are the text to speech ones that say “Download this app today”. The unblinking energenic people saying you can make a living at home are probably a close second.
Everyone here is so passionately hating ad’s. I haven’t felt that upset about ad’s since I was a teenager back in like 2004.
I use adblocker for my browser cause I don’t want spyware/malware. But watching TV ad’s is interesting to me. I keep seeing comments about people being complete idiots who just settled and they just take it from the advertisers…
That couldn’t be farther from the truth for someone like me. I enjoy nostalgia a lot. So I got a live tv package with regular cable tv channels and there are ad’s. I did this on purpose though. I am not some idiot who has been brainwashed. I just find advertising interesting in general.
Seems like a lot of commenters here would think of me as some kind of monster. Why, I’m not sure. I guess cause ad’s are some kind of big bad we all have to fight against?
Someone here mentioned that people work on those ad’s and I think that’s part of why I enjoy them. Because technically, that’s often someone’s artwork. I’m in favor of more animated commercials too.
But I get it. Consumerism = bad.
Just feels like more like “no fun allowed”
Sometimes, if I’m feeling especially saucy, I’ll watch 80s commercial supercuts on youtube for hours.
yeah those are always fun to see!
I went to a bar recently that did a 90’s trivia night and in between the rounds they showed some retro commercials.
I did my annual reimage and it’s always jarring having to put everything back on lol.
Same, it’s so weird seeing normal TV or using the internet without blockers. Feels like living in Idiocracy.
One of my most used sites has a banner that says “Sign up for a small fee to remove the ads.”
I was a confused for a second, because I had never seen one.
Tried the site with another browser with my default protection off and holy shit, so many ads. The webpage is mostly unusable because of the shear number.
its really jarring, and to see people just accept it, kinda hurts my soul.
What? What ads?
I’ve been doing it for so many years across all devices and platforms that I actually get…confused for a second when one slips through. It is normally YouTube that slips through (they seem to be trying new things almost daily to get around any possible ad blocks), but sometimes it is from a major news web site or something. I actually have to look around for a second and then realize what has just happened.
Only time I ever see actual ads anymore are when I’m out and about and see billboards, when my parents are watching TV, or when I go to furaffinity on TOR for some NSFW images.
I’m fine with the ads on FA since they’re at the top and bottom of the pages and not intrusive at all and aren’t really much more than ads for probably shitty games (minus the Brok the Investigator ads) and art commission services the vast majority of the time.
FA as in… Fur Affinity?
Yes. As in furaffinity.
Dundun duuun
I often forget they even exist
I use a VPN which has an excellent ad & bs blocker. But occasionally some sites need me to turn it off to pay for things or whatever and I forget to turn it back on and end up browsing the internet in its normal state.
And wow… welcome to commerce central. It’s not that all the ads are obnoxious though some are, but the quantity of them is out of control on some websites.
To be fair, I’ve found it’s a good rule of thumb that the quality of a website is usually proportionate to the less amount of ads they have.
I also reviewed mobile games for a while and had to play without a VPN to get the same experience most players would get - game ads are the worst. Unrepresentative of the games they’re trying to sell, but also often sexist (veering towards misogynistic), obnoxious and with false endings.
Which VPN?
I use Surfshark but I expect most of the quality ones offer something similar. Nord and Express often get mentioned as the best VPNs but Surfshark as the best cheap VPN - I’m impressed with it, would recommend. You can even use Chrome on Android and most sites seem like normal, though I’ve switched to Firefox anyway
(If you are thinking of using a VPN just don’t use a free one because they’re probably dodgy)
Level 99 mafia boss checking in 😎
proportionate to the less amount
“inversely proportionate”
My colleague uses chrome like Google intended and every time she shares her screen I question her sanity. Terminal instead of iTerm, ok. Not using oh my zsh, well, if you insist. But that? You can barely identify the information you’re looking for between all that screaming nonsense.
Ads nowadays are little more than psychological assault and it can’t be healthy to be exposed to it regularly. My Home Ec teacher back in the day had a whole unit about the different manipulations present in advertisements and it was really enlightening and upsetting. Modern advertising should be banned or severely regulated.
I support significant regulation, but it won’t happen. But having a course like the one you took as well as media-literacy should be required middle-school education with a more sophisticated follow-up in high school. That also won’t happen because then you don’t get the people who vote for GOP pieces of shit. It’s in their interest to have citizens who are easily manipulated.
My father said babies were being aborted basically when ready for birth. I said there’s no way that was happening, said send me a link. One glance at the page and I didn’t need to read the article because of the gimmicks all over plus obviously bogus ads. He had a doctorate of mech engineering, but he couldn’t handle life on the internet. Typing this, I’m horrified to realize that I’m glad he passed when he did and didn’t end up with ever-increasingly wacko beliefs that could have harmed our relationship.
My latest ad-shock was over at a friend’s house. I’ve not had cable since probably '03? They have cable because a parent lives with them and insists/pays. Just having the TV on playing random things felt weird. Weirder still is having the movie interrupted by ads every 5 seconds. And the ads are just gross. The only thing that was decent was using it as a discovery service. The movie, one of the X-Men that was not one of the good ones, was what we stumbled upon. We watched for a bit, then ended up switching to watching it elsewhere to dunk on it. In ad-free, interruption-free, 4k with surround. Paying for the cable experience (which is rapidly the streaming experience) seems entirely anachronistic.
I feel you, I’ve been using an ad blocker for so long I’ve lost count of the years. I’m always obliterated by how vapid and meaningless modern ads are, its all psychological hacking which is a violation of our mental sovereignty.
I also feel like the “happy young people, living their best life with our product” style ads help keep people delusional about the current state of the world and where we are heading. Like that “Everything is fine” meme, but the dog has a vr headset on and sound cancelling headphones that constantly chant “The heat you are feeling is good for the economy. Everything IS fine!”.
I agree, it is 100% dystopian.
They Live called it in 1988!I just recently watched that movie for the first time a month or so ago, and it was so jarring how accurate it was with the subliminal messaging
I remember the times I’d go from watching Tivo to trying to watch live TV.
“When I’m watchin’ my TV
And a man comes on and tells me
How white my shirts can be
But, he can’t be a man 'cause he doesn’t smoke
The same cigarettes as me”
The Rolling Stones
