389
Ad companies are the ones destroying civilization
(lemmy.world)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2026
389 points (100.0% liked)
Showerthoughts
40721 readers
619 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
TBF, the original meaning of advertising was just that: spread the word about your product. Sure, praise it, add nice pictures, but that's about it. People need to know that your product is out there, and what it's like.
The systematic psychological manipulation only started in the 20th century, particularly when a relative of Sigmund Freud came to the USA (there's an interesting documentary about it called The Century of the Self).
I largely agree with you though; algorithmic engagement is the worst incarnation so far. To put it simple: "Angry People Click More", see more ads, and are therefore to be targeted.
I get that, if you're arguing from an economic efficiency standpoint, there was an argument to be made that the spreading of new information through advertising helps to spread new innovative ideas and thus increases overall societal efficiency.
It's just that a) in the Internet age, we have other, non-advertising ways to spread information (i.e. specs and reviews), and b) if advertising was actually still about genuine education, then it would not scale in effectiveness the way it does with volume and repetition.
I'm not generally disagreeing with your assessment of the current situation, just a little historical BTW.
Interesting, I never thought of it that way.
However, most of that is still part of advertising; producers proactively strive to get reviewed.
Reaching out to reviewers is still technically advertising in the broadest definition of the word, but it is distinct from commercial advertising where companies pay to broadcast their specific messages to users.
This distinction is also reflected in the way that most companies are operated these days: reaching out to reviewers with information and offering them review units would fall under the marketing / communications / strategy department, but wouldn't be referred to as advertising unless they were paying the reviewer for a positive review, which isn't even legal in some places.