Category — Crowd Follows A Crowd

Magic and advertising are both deeply rooted in manipulation, and exploiting knowledge of human psychology. One of the most important aspects of the magician’s trade is manipulating the spectators choice while at the same time tricking that spectator into thinking they willingly made the choice. Derren Brown is a master of that particular trick. Check out some Derren Brown videos at the bottom of this post.

Ironically, that type of manipulation plays a huge part in advertising as well. In fact, magicians, politicians, advertisers and mediums are all essentially doing the same thing, the difference lies in their levels of honesty. The magician is usually the only honest one.
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Adam Pacitti started the website TheGirlOfMyDreams after he supposedly had a dream of a girl of such amazing beauty, that he felt he had to find her in real life. So he drew her, and he posted the drawing online along with a video. Fortunately for us and everyone who loves hilarious things, Adam draws like a 5 year old. Yes, you saw it correctly in the video. Here is the girl of his dreams:

I’m still torn over whether Mr. Pacitti is a genius or slow-witted goon. If this is fake, he’s a genius, and he’s found a way to bring hundreds of thousands of people to his website and get exposure in the national media. But his website doesn’t have any ads, so it looks like he’s not making any money from whole thing. That means it may not be fake, and that’s a disturbing concept for me.
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Ever since the 1980s, there’s been a rumor that American Express has a special card for the elite members of society. Supposedly the ultra-rich use it to get into the secret floor at Macy’s or the unadvertised underground restaurants of New York. It was cool to think there’s a whole lifestyle that you could gain access to if only you had a special card. Unfortunately, it didn’t actually exist until 1999. That’s when American Express decided to capitalize on the urban legend and make it a reality.

Since then, the Black Card (real name: The Centurion Card) has worked its way into popular culture. Rappers rap about it, writers incorporate it into books and magazines, it’s mentioned on TV shows. It’s the mark of wealth. But how hard is it to get one?
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McCain’s recent ad, Man In The Arena, is surprisingly good looking considering his other recent ads. Now, I’m talking from a purely aesthetic point of view. As far as substance goes, this ad offers nothing more than Obama’s American Promise, and everything I said about that ad can be said about this one. But still, it’s very effective advertising; more so, I think, than anything Obama has offered so far.

McCain’s ads to date have been almost entirely negative, usually with a disgusted sounding voice-over talking about things Obama has either done or not done. They were particularly acerbic and difficult to watch. This ad is different though, it optimistic, focused on McCain, and I think it portrays him in a better light to those who don’t really care about issues anyway.
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Obama’s new political ad, “The American Promise” is the single most frightening political advertisement I have ever seen in my life. It’s absolutely chilling. The rabid cultist gleam in the eyes of the supporters nearly weeping as Obama repeats his meaningless rhetoric. Can this be real?

I’ve never had much faith in the political understanding of my fellow man. Admittedly, I’m a horrible misanthrope, of the opinion that the masses are irrational chumps, with about as much understanding of basic economics as I have about the inner workings of the Large Hadron Collider.

Maybe I’m out of touch, but I imagine the average person setting out nachos every Sunday to root for Red or Blue like a political football game; shouting out buzzwords like “More Regulations!” and “Al Qaeda Hates Freedom!”, then talking about it the next day at the water cooler. Why else follow politics if not as conversation fodder, right?

I figured I’d just watch the madness from the sidelines for a while and move to Costa Rica when the shit really starts to hit the fan and the freaks inevitably vote themselves into slavery. I didn’t think it’d happen so quickly though.
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Remember this?

I had no words for these commercials. I hesitated to even write about them since I thought there would eventually be some sort of punchline commercial to cap them off. But no, they were just odd for the sake of oddity, and now they’re canceled. The internet spoke unanimously and Microsoft listened. It might just have been the worst way to spend $300 million dollars in the history of the modern era.

Maybe that’s what Microsoft was getting at: “We’re so successful, we can spend $300 million dollars on a meaningless ad campaign, suck it Apple”. If that were the tag line, I’d at least respect their testicular fortitude.

But it’s over and done with, a thing of the past. What we’re interested in now is the future. Thankfully for Microsoft they have a new series of commercials that are actually good. Check out the video after the jump I’m A PC
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