How much is too much!

The Ad and The Ego

I will never look at an ad the same way again after screening The Ad and the Ego, a documentary that examination the US culture of Media consumption and advertisement. The Ad and the Ego goes beyond simple advertisements to reveal the economic and political interest behind an ad. In our "today’s world" of advance technology and devastating pollution, individuals, political candidates and their parties, organizations and groups, and to my surprise even the government also advertise. The armed force uses ads to recruit volunteers. Special interest groups promote a cause or try to influence people's thoughts and actions. Politicians use ads to try to win votes. This film makes the critical connections between the rise of consumerism, environmental degradation and our blind commitment to economic growth at any cost. The documentary demonstrate how living in an advertisement environment creates a psychology of need, massaging our anxieties, doubts, and discontents, creating a boundless hunger for more things. In my everyday life, I come into contact with many different kinds of advertising. Printed ads are found in newspapers and magazines. Poster ads are placed in buses, subways, and trains. Signs along downtown Boston streets. Billboards dot the landscape along highways. Commercials interrupt radio and television programming. I will stop everything I am doing to turn and watch a TV. Commercial usually remind me of things I don’t have but that I need to get. I don’t think they necessary make me buy things I don’t need but I do think that ads are hunting people conscious. I consider myself, a Wise consumer. I always try to be "very conscious of the ads I see." It is impossible to avoid ads but it possible to take them out of context and see the true motivation behind them. It is amazing how this documentary somehow brings you to face reality behind today’s civilized and advance world.