Stay Tuned For Further Commercials

This is an opinion column I did for the Eastern Illinois University student newspaper. It ran on a Wednesday a month or so ago:


We did it! We finally got the upper hand on the media! No longer do we have to wait for a show and sit there and watch it during the designated time. Oh no, we DVR, TiVo, and record it any way we can. We choose the time and zap through the advertisements. Man it feels so good to no longer be a slave to time requirements and the commercial media.

Feels good to think they that, doesn’t it? Oh but the truth is far much further away from that then we could imagine. We do truly believe that we have risen above the force-feeding of advertisements with the advancement of digital video recording, but we haven’t. You may be zapping through the obvious commercials to get back to your show, but all you are really doing is fast forwarding to get to the other advertisements: the hidden ones.

And these can be sneaky to many of us who simply just enjoy watching our favorite shows and getting sucked in by the plot lines long enough for the advertisers to plant their messages and products everywhere. Do you think it’s just mere coincidence that Lauren from MTV’s “The Hills” works at Teen Vogue? Or that most everything everyone wears in that show is of the latest fashion and always presented in a good way?

It’s all for you! Not in the nice, cuddly “ here’s an ice cream cone to enjoy” way. But more as in the “you think this story is why you are here but really it’s to want to buy this stuff.” Now granted, the show “The Hills” does follow Lauren Conrad’s life; for the most part. But don’t think that those producers for that show are not trying every which way they can to mold her story and present the products those companies have paid for to be in the show.

Cause let’s face it, folks. It is all a show. A show for us, the consumers. We are not, and have never been, the “viewers.” That is just a word to make us feel better about what we subjugate ourselves to on almost a nightly basis. Now this isn’t something that we are easily going to overcome. It’s just the way the television is set up. We are all victims of it. The important thing is just being aware of what goes on around us and understanding how much all these people want our money. But no worries, right? You’re not one of those people. You don’t get sucked in by such things. Just don’t look in the mirror.