Covid-19 and Advertising

Fuck that.

Billboards – and other forms of large scale intrusive advertising – are disturbing as is, but plastering the typical Covid-19 slogans and shibboleths on them makes things exponentially worse. Modern advertising is a form of psychological violence; it is no secret that the ads that populate the screens that dominate our daily lives have been meticulously designed by psychologists to have a powerful effect upon the viewer. Having lived in a digital environment my entire life there is no doubt that the images and slogans of advertising have had a profound impact on my psyche, it is only in the past few years that I’ve developed a healthy aversion to this sort of manipulation. Which brings me to the present situation of our sterilized world, I think one of the things that the Chinavirus situation can illuminate for us is the power that advertisements have over belief.

I’ve been inclined to think that the powerful nature of advertising is the most immediate cause of the Covid hysteria and resultant changes in way of life and worldview among the population. Here the slogans and advertising serve no other purpose but to implant a set of dogmatic beliefs into the masses, and it is astonishing how readily this has been assimilated. It’s like normal advertising but on the steroid of fear. And the new sterile way of viewing the world has been prioritized over what were once more fundamental concepts like family, religion, and social norms. Now our neighbours are the enemy if they profess a different creed. I suppose this is not the first time a new radical set of beliefs has been successfully implanted into the masses through media, but now it has been done so well that there is not even any real resistance to these ideas. In a detached, historical way of looking at things it is interesting to see this in action; but in reality it’s just fucking depressing. (A great analysis of the Covidian worldview is found here on Cosmos Crouched.)

Lastly, there is no doubt in my mind that slogans like “stay home” and “stay safe” do nothing but produce a pathetic society. Living in safety is no life at all. I can’t think of a lower goal for a society or an individual than simply being “safe.” A life worth living must be dangerous, nothing is more antithetical to the human spirit than sterility and confinement.