SUBLIMINAL ADVERTISING AND ADDICTION
About three years ago I moved to the wee but important old American town of Las Vegas, New Mexico.
This town is like a microcosm of the whole wide world. And there is antiquity, and a time warp here and some other zigs and zags in the culture — woven of so many long histories coexisting on this same scarred land and observing the beauty left behind by the ravages of nature. Ravages that have torn and ravages that also built this helpless turf into the tough place it is today.
Yes, beauty, along with ravages. The town, (yes, it has a smaller newspaper), but its history dates back to not just the development of America, but to way before the pioneers moved into it, and way before human beings lived here. Fossils tell the tale.
Yesterday I read that Microsoft has bought-out Activision- Blizzard! What’s so terrible about that?
One of my beloved grandsons spends most of his time in his bachelor apartment hammering away at Xbox. He’s been obsessively preoccupied with computer gaming for years. He’s about 40! He has been part of a group of fellow players, online, for years. He knows them better than he knows anyone, I think.
I’ve watched some of this activity. It’s such a breathlessly dramatic set of dangerous people, places and things that leak, or jerk, or sneak around the monitor figuring out how not to die while killing off the bad guys. The nimble 40-year old fingers man the controls for hours nearly every day; even into night. With new versions of games, the players can increasingly morph their chosen characters on the screen creatively to equip them with special supernatural properties that will let them trick the enemy. (The enemy has powers also.) Artificial Intelligence, you know.
It’s not new, this life-or-death gaming. Think back to folks getting kicks out of watching humans fight to the death in the Coliseum. Or infamous, even Biblical wars where people died by the thousands by the hands of other people to see who would “win.” Pitting dogs against each other, having carefully taught them to fight-or-be-killed. Fun games of cockfighting with man-made razors attached to birds claws.
While we people sit in our worlds with protective masks on, watching coverage of forest fires, and bombs and assassination, and with lies and stealth happening in our own US backyards it’s almost as exciting as the movies, yet we pay to see programmed cyber-drama. The more frightening the better, right? It takes a LOT to frighten us as long as we have a screen in front of us.
Well, that’s what makes the world go round, right? Remember the ballplayer named Vick who enjoyed dog-fighting? Not so long ago.
When I was a teenager I became aware of something fascinating called subliminal advertising.
We innocent humans consumed subliminal animated sneak-ads in films or on TV, but it flicked past so fast it passed by us and suddenly we had a very strong yearning for a Coke, or whatever. The movie theaters’ food concessions were very happy with the spurt of sales. Coke was a big success. Are there people who yearned for Cokes enough to become morbidly overweight? Diabetic? Yes.
TV and film presentations, sometime during the late 70’s found that splicing a single frame of a recognizable brand icon into the fast-moving frames of an exciting movie could actually make you long for a beer, or a cigarette!
Addiction begins with something feeling good. It feels good once in a while at first, and then it is when feeling good becomes central to some people’s lives (think Pavlov’s dog) that it begs to be repeated in perpetuity! We are seduced! And then we get to where we feel sick or wracked with pain unless we have a “fix” of something.
What if a “feel good” or “fun” thing became about death and murder and blood and gore and explosive devastation and pain and fear and vengeance? In winning!!! In being a winner. Does “winning” become an addiction? Do we suffer when we consider ourselves losers?
Like the addicted soul down at the corner trading a little wad of this for a little wad of that, I want more. I will even pay for more. I might even steal to pay for more.
The people who make computer games started out being entertainers. Games, right? Someone wins. Someone loses. Chess does it like that. Bridge. Poker. Some people who don’t win much conclude that they are born losers. No good. Worthless. Despicable.
People flock to places to place Lottery bets. Just maybe…just maybe…etc.
Lottery bets are what they work hard hours for. Just maybe…
I am so disappointed that Microsoft has spent the largest amount in history to buy out this very popular Xbox thing. Have you looked lately at an Xbox “war game?” Have you wondered why people think that all they need for survival is a good gun? More than subliminal, cartoonish war games are creative masterpieces at relaying fear, hatred, vengeance, blood and guts into the eyes and ears and brains of habitual watchers. These are nightmares in undiluted detail.
Will those expert “war-fans” end up wearing actual body armor, maybe? To keep from being attacked on the street? Maybe they will buy a gun. Maybe they will join a club for target practice. Maybe they will imagine that killing people is much more thrilling than Poker. Maybe they will find other people who love the “game” as much as they do. Maybe PaintBall? Maybe they will love to attend protests and resistance marches.
Revenge is the other “feel good” thing that people become addicted to. The most intelligent, good hearted, loving people can have justify a case of retribution so very easily, even without watching war themed cartoons. “Getting back” is somehow built into our flight and fright responses. Some people find fighting comes “naturally.”
Even an infant can learn it early, sad to say.
Kids at my 1944 elementary school would sometimes say “Drop Dead Twice” to belittle someone. Who taught them that?
Fury. It lies inside waiting for a free hand-out.
Can we find room for that in our lives?
Do we want to play with fury just for fun? Do we like it when others like to join us in our fury?
© SGHolland 2022
edited 1/22/22
