Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Does This Work?

 I'm laid up with the flu and have been playing a puzzle game on my phone. When you get "stuck" you can escape by watching an ad. I've watched a lot of ads. A few things strike me.

One, there are a lot of games that involve some young mother in dire circumstances and you have to solve a puzzle to save her. Does the psychology of that appeal to people?

Two, the ads for most of the games are atrocious. There are the "fake street interviews" and the impassioned endorsements by... someone? People I'm supposed to know? This makes me wonder about the whole "influencer economy" and the prevalence of that in people's lives. Now, maybe the endorsers are obscure and the ad is supposed to trick you into thinking they are "internet famous". Or maybe for some odd subset of humanity, they really ARE famous, and I just have no insight into that world, except through this weird online ad phenomenon.

Anyway, the flu sucks and Elon Musk has launched a coup.

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