First we had Black Friday and the week long barrage of advertisements that preceded it.  The bombardment was brutal as always and made it virtually impossible for me to comfortably watch TV, listen to the radio, or read my emails.  Spam was worse than usual on the net and there was just no let up.  Some time Friday afternoon I expected some relief when the end of Black Friday was in sight.  Wrong! Visiting a few stores during that week was a huge disappointment for me too.  In years past the Christmas holiday really didn’t take off until the weekend following Black Friday, but no more.  For example, Lowes was setting Christmas displays two weeks before Black Friday and  I can only assume they were following the example set by the Big Daddy retailer, Walmart.  I was already sick of the Christmas season in late September with their  slashed prices, great deals, giveaways, and enough coupons mailed to kill off a large forest. It was just plain stupid but I was certain it would soon decline in frequency.  Wrong again.

I wake up bright and early on Sunday and the barrage had changed focus.  It’s now the beginning of the ramp up to Cyber Monday.  I wonder what genius thought up that pain-in-the-ass promotion.  Chances are good it was a combination of people from  Best Buy, Apple, and of course Amazon.  My mail box was suddenly filled anew with another round of nonsense.  The old Circuit City brand that closed it’s retail establishments five years ago is now alive and well as an internet business and returned once more to bother me.  Prices were being  lowered again and again with the drumbeat continuing on both television and radio.  I was forced to abandon electronic media for a day or two and just sit quietly and read a good book. 

Monday arrived and again I was hoping for a reprieve from the advertising onslaught  with the end of the Cyber Monday debacle.  Wrong again.  Late Monday I began hearing a new phrase being bandied about, Cyber Week!  These effing people are relentless in their need to make most of us as miserable and brainwashed as possible. Maybe next year November can become Cyber Month and Christmas resets can begin in August. This country is on advertising overload and has been for quite some time.   I recall a time when cable TV was first introduced and they called it Pay TV.  We were assured that with the advent of cable we could watch television commercial-free for just a small monthly payment.  That claim lasted about a week before they began to clog the new cable airways with ads and began jacking up the monthly fee.   

I sat with a stop watch one evening earlier this year and decided to determine how much time was spent on actual TV programming.  In a standard one half hour sitcom we’re being force-fed  approximately ten minutes of boring, annoying, and stupid advertisements.  That means for a two hour movie special we are fed forty minutes of ads.  It won’t be long before what used to be an hour special will become a three and a half hour advertising fiasco.  When will it end?  I think the answer to  that would be “Never”. 

We aren’t permitted any ad free  time to sit and think about anything but spend, spend, spend.  Walmart seems to be the trend setter in all things retail and it doesn’t take long for Target, Best Buy, and all of the others to follow suit.  Walmart is constantly in our face on TV and upon arrival at their stores you’ll find endless numbers of signs posted everywhere.  You enter the building and there are signs for the Donut Shop, Pharmacy, Bank, Eyeglasses, Beauty Shop and even Nail Salons.  The entire building is covered in signs for just about every product they carry.  Their latest and greatest devices to drive me crazy  are those little LCD screens located on end-caps that activate as you approach.  Another sales pitch for some bullshit useless product I didn’t want to begin with.  My first introduction to those little devices scared the crap out of me as I was walking along minding my own business and all of a sudden I have a female voice bellowing at  me  to buy some stupid product I really didn’t need.  Criminally annoying.

My rant is over for now.  The problem  with all of these advertisements is two fold.  First, they seem to work which gives the companies incentive to continue using them and second, it gives them the power to manipulate large numbers of the population to do their bidding.  As always my bitch about the Media in general is their constant attempts to control not only politics in this country but everything else as well.  If that doesn’t give you pause and scare you a little then we’ve already lost the battle.

I’m leaving now because I feel the need to scream and then run to Walmart and buy something stupid. Merry Effing Christmas!