Bridge, 2023

You know what captures a lot of our attention these days?
Advertising.

Firstly, a caveat: Advertising can play a very helpful role in our lives.
I really want to know that a cute new business is opening in the town over.

But I’m more likely to know about what Rihanna is up to.
No shade to Rihanna, we didn’t know capitalism was a game until she won it, and we truly aspire to be as successful in our endeavors.

But the problem with the amount of advertising we see a day - 4000-10,000 individual ads says Google

Is that we didn’t ask for them.

Our attention is being captured against our will.

This volume of advertising means that the methods of advertisers have to become more slick
in order to ‘cut through’ and reach us.
So it’s been crossed with entertainment and influencing.
The ultimate collab.

But remember, with entertainment, you pay the fare and opt into the fantasy world.
It’s your choice whether to enter or not.
Advertising takes that choice away.

You enter the fake fantasy future with no disclaimer
But a call to action
BUY! THIS! PRODUCT!
It will make your life better.

And before you know it
Our minds are preoccupied with the latest gadget lip kit waist trainer laundry routine designer bag

A million decisions that apparently form our identity
But actually take attention away from our dreams.

We live in a fantasy concocted by a bunch of people in a room who use
Art & Science
To design a world with no discomfort
To engineer the perfect graphic- gesture- interaction- suggestion
To get you to click buy
And reduce your dreams to a shopping cart.

Don’t they say that it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become an expert?
I guess we’re all experts now
At living in our heads
In a fantasy world that we try to conjure with products
To keep the bad thoughts away.

Instead of
Our bodies

Which always know
Which way to go
If only we knew how to listen

The techno-advertising era
Has made capitalism too manipulative
It’s capitalism in Beast Mode

The small businesses don’t get a chance
Americans don’t get a chance to be great

Because the algorithms amplify what is already there
What is already hot
Taking innovation away from all of us …

What if we made a storefront for our online attention?

So we have a say in

What we pay attention to
When we pay attention to it

Is freedom any more than that?

Own our attention, own the internet.

may4w0r1d.com