Asklemmy

Gah, everything. Interrupting my shows. Ruining the vibe before they even start. Destroying the time I’d use to contemplate the ending.

Nowadays, ads are just… everywhere. None of them are relevant because I don’t have the disposable income to buy superfluous things. They obstruct the view of the short-form videos I watch, they interrupt them, they clutter up webpages and make them load much slower than they should, they get in the way of my feed and the content I actually want to see.

They’re a nuisance, one that no online company seeks to minimize or control. It’s always just money money money. How can we make more money? I know, let’s make our pages and services so inconvenient to use that our users can’t help but accidentally click on every ad they see, or they pay us through the nose to get an experience that’s worse than what we used to offer for free.

Advertising is considered "free" but our constant bombardment with it is draining our energy and ability to engage and focus on genuine interactions.

Advertising is destroying our ability to be productive especially for those of us who are ADHD.

1. Men are incompetent and stupid
2. Same ad over and over for stuff I don’t want or need
3. The offensive ads that assume I’m a boomer with too much money:

• I can’t afford to buy a single house, why would I want landlord’s insurance on my holiday house?
• I’m barely keeping my head above water, why do you think I want to refinance my house?

I don't like listening to lies, and that's what marketing often is. Lies poisons your mind, specially if repeated often so the brain starts to get used to them.

That they exist and force the rampant consumerism of dying Capitalism

I hate commercials that have NO connection to the product they're selling. At all. Like, somebody literally wasted your company's money to make a video about nothing.

Showing the benefits of your product is step 1 of advertising. Creativity is dead.

I mostly hate that they take us for absolute dimwits devoid of any kind of reflection or without a faint flimmer of intelligence.

Just pisses me off. If i happen to see an ad unwillingly, I'll try to boycott the product. I know i don't matter, but it's for me.

I hate the psychology. Those ads are designed by experts to make you less happy than you were before you saw the ad. Yes, even the ads full of happy people bouncing around. The ads full of moving life events set to piano music. The ads about "that ... feeling". They're designed to make you dissatisfied and depressed. Fuck ads.

• Some places show me the same ads over and over, sometimes even back to back. No, Super Car Insurance 2000, I wasn't interested the first time and I'm not interested the tenth time. I don't even have a car and showing me your ad again won't make me buy one just so I can get your insurance.
• Telling me what I can save without telling me what it costs. Number 1 offender is Hello Fresh on German podcasts. Apparently I can save 150€ on my first three boxes... which makes me wonder in what world the regular price can still be a good deal. Groceries are expensive but sure as hell I don't spend that much on dinner alone.

I hate how commercials always seem to interrupt right when things are getting good.

It's so wasteful. It costs paper, electricity, bandwidth, and mostly, my time. I don't have money. If you advertise something that costs money, I'm not interested.

I heard one I thought was ridiculous. You can pay a company because you spend so much you don't even know where your money is going, because don't we all have so many subscriptions nowadays?

I have a no spam sticker on my mailbox but brokers don't care. No, I don't want to sell my home so you can drive up the rent. If I'd own the place, I could do that myself.

I already go to the supermarket every day. Why do they need to shout at me telling me what they're selling? Stop wasting money and make stuff cheaper instead

I never watch TV anymore, but commercials still find a way to get at me. If I want to watch an older series, I have to consciously avoid certain regional releases because they might have scenes removed to cram in an extra five minutes of ads. The fade-outs and immediate recaps that would've surrounded the commercial blocks are also annoying.

Everything. They're always terrible.

But the worst thing is when they are UNREASONABLY LOUD.

You're watching whatever. Equalized commercial comes on its not a big deal. Maybe you go take a leak or get a drink.

But when a loud one comes on it just upends everything. It sucks.

I can't be the only person who instinctively trusts a product/brand less the more I see ads for it.

The biggest example is alcohol brands. It's almost guaranteed that the more advertising a brand does, the more middle-low quality is. (There will always be the ultra-cheap option with no marketing of course.)

It's mind boggling to me that in this modern interconnected era that this isn't obvious to everybody.

I hate that commercials are manipulative, they exploit us with clever tricks.

I'd have to say it's the mind control that bothers me the most. When I cut the cord to my TV way back when, it really felt like most people lived in an ersatz reality where people only did things they saw in TV commercials. Whatever they see on TV is "real" and anything that capital doesn't have an interest in promoting to them is "weird."

I hate the interruption. The fake enthusiasm. The inane narratives - using the right toilet paper will change the weather from stormy to sunny? Fuck off, marketers.

I hate ads in apps with a little cross...

That they exist. I've lived without cable or over-air television for more than two decades. Before streaming, I pirated low-quality tv show rips. I haven't been exposed to tv commercials unless visiting family or friends for years.

TV commercials are so loud and obnoxious and treat the viewers as morons and I can't stand them. But people who are used to them tune them out as background noise. I can't tune them out. I need them to be muted or I can't think. I also shun internet commercials. If I can't watch content without the ad, I just don't watch.

About 20 years I went on a vacation to southern Spain .... during the point when Spain was just fully transitioning into the European Union.

I remember trying to watch some TV programs (there wasn't much to watch) ... but the funny thing that struck me was the commercials. They'd play an hour and half long movie for about an hour ... then stop and play non stop commercials for about 15 minutes. It was normal for everyone because they used the time to just get up, bathroom break, kitchen duty, clean the house, go grab some groceries, etc ... then return to the living room in time to watch the rest of the movie. No one watched commercials because they all hated them as much as anyone else.

I don't think they do that any more but I thought I wouldn't mind that myself ... instead of breaking my show every ten / fifteen minutes with a minute of commercials ... just show them all to me in ten minutes at the end of an hour.

If I need something, I do my own investigation and buy whatever suits my needs. I don't need anyone to manufacture needs for me, not that it would work any way.

That, and I'm against any and all information poison and commercials are exactly that.

That they influence my kid. Or even when I was a kid I was influenced by them.

The 100% fake enthusiasm, especially if it comes after buying a mediocre product.

The annoying corporate speak.

The bad voice over where lipsyncing is completely gone, this is mostly a thing of the past here in Sweden, but from time to time you get ads from companies launching a product across europe and only record one video to the ad and then translate and do a new voiceover for specific languages as needed, but fail to sync the audio with the video.

Annoying music, for months now a company has been pushing their financial services withe the same terrible ad that is a slideshow and an increadibly annoying music, there is no person talking, they just have a fast tempo music track. I have vowed to never buy anything from them because their ad sucks and is annoying.

Reusing ads, sometimes a company buys almost all ad slots on YT over months and reuse their one ad video so it is completely grating.

Self-righteousness, some ads go from being overly enthusiastic to being intolerably self-righteous. There was a new clinic chain of companies that started a big push a few years ago on yt and for several months you had to listen to an overly kind and happy grandmother wearing a company branded sweater, faking a hearty laugh and telling people to go to their clinic.

So beyond the fact that they are everywhere and the mass data harvesting that they incentivise I hate particular types of adverts, particularly in TV

• There's the type that tries to connect their product to something you care deeply about, like family. A common one is the scene of a family reunion, sons and daughters coming home for Christmas, everyone is happy and indeed I connect with that deeply. Then comes the reveal, its fucking oven chips, or candles or some other inane shit. I know why they do this, but I find it deeply insulting, trying to tag their product to my fondest memories, fuck off.

• Second there's the Freaky/edgy/bizarre ones. As desperarly as it can the advert will try to be as novel, crazy and outright surreal as to force its way into your head. They try to make the action on screen so crazy that you cant help but pay attention. This is a more brute force approach and tries to burn itseld into your memory, until you need a chocolate bar or some shit. There's one I remember where a woman was on screen with another mouth on her forehead talking, its a memory I don't want, again, fuck off

I hate ads because fundamentally they don't respect you, or anything you care about, its just about the money in your wallet.

Their existence is a waste of time. If I wanted to but a Big Mac, I’ll go and fucking buy one. No ad is going to make me do that.

During the pandemic I was trying to buy a new car since I’d moved further away from my job and needed one for the first tune in years. So many car ads, but every dealership I called “oh, we won’t have stock for another 6-8 months”. Well then stop advertising your cars!

And just generally; I know products exist. I’m aware that I can but a product to clean windows. Seeing your ad isn’t making me go “wow, clean windows, there’s a thought!” For fucks sake.

Ads are one thing that really pisses me off.

I hate buying something online then I begin seeing ads for it

their very existence

The people who create them think they are the smartest people in the world, and they make the worst product imaginable.

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I haven't seen an AD in so long and I couldn't be happier. I don't watch TV and I use adblocks or open source software on my phone

It's the smarmy, overly excited, commercial voices for me. And I'm saying that as a VO artist who's produced HUNDREDS of smarmy, overly excited commercials over the years. I'm so sick of it. I've taken drastic steps to try and block all ads from my life. Somehow it's never enough.

I don't hate commercials themselves, advertisement itself for me is natural, everyone advertises. My problem is when they're unprovoked. An individual looking for a job will search for job offers, which are ads. A person who's watching a news segment about a hurricane is not looking to also buy a smell-water-bottle.

Everything about marketing I absolutely despise. It's all lies sowing a hunger within that their product will satisfy a need.

A bullet is too good for them!

The sheer waste of technology and innovation used for marketing that could have been better used to the benefit of humanity.

That they're everywhere. I have uBO on my browser and actively choose against places and experiences with advertising whenever I can, but it still feels like it's everywhere. Hey, that's a nice mountain. Can you not with the billboard? It's like sponsored vandalism.

As others have pointed out, there's a lot to hate about ads since the industry is routinely dishonest, insulting, obnoxious, deceptive, intrusive, and all manner of unpleasant. I've been adblocking religiously for most of my life for these reasons.

So I think a more interesting question might be the other way around: "What do you like about commercials?"

The only commercials I've ever liked are the ones for local small businesses. The ones with a nonexistent production budget that aren't beating the viewer over the head with blatant lies or dishonest sales tactics.

Adult Swim used to have faux-ad bumpers for the fictional business "Strickland Propane" from King of the Hill, featuring the honest-to-a-fault character Hank Hill as the spokesman, which I felt captured that vibe well.

Rhett and Link also made a funny homage to these kinds of commercials in this classic skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnOyMSEWNTs

That people watch them. I can stop myself from watching them, but all those billions of my fellow stupid people are still being influenced, and I can't do anything about that.

That they seem to be treated as if they're more important than the content they're advertising on.

there are NOT enough of them

Aside from what others have said about their annoying traits, popping in at inconvenient times etc.

i dont care if the product was developed by an (insert alleged expert in field), i dont want you to scare me into using your product…. i want commercials to sing to me again. i want jingles baby! we have very little silly shit like that these days.

I buy mentos not because it’s the best product, but because i remember the jingle and it makes me jazzed about getting them.

commercials need to lighten up and be casual of they want me to be content on having to watch them.

My ex liked to sing jingles and quote adverts to me when we went on long road trip somewhere as a joke, and I guess hearing those same jingles/adverts now makes me miss her terribly.

Also this lives rent free in my head:
If you don't want your summer to be lame and icky
Pick up the phone and call me
(I'm Vicky!)

nothing 🫡💲