Thanks for the link. I was gonna ask if you were a writer, heh.
I agree. The tone of the ads this year felt almost like lampshading. Like if we acknowledge the problem, we’re wise to what the audience is feeling, but we’re not going to do a damn thing to address it. It’s just something that needs to be done to make the ad feel remotely relevant.
AI is scary, but don’t be afraid of our surveillance device because we acknowledged that AI is scary
AI will sell you ads. Anyway, you’re watching an ad for AI
Work sucks amirite? Why not let us unemploy you?
There’s a wealth gap. Spend money on our stuff.
And I’m not going to even link the He Gets Us ads.
The tone of the ads this year felt almost like lampshading. Like if we acknowledge the problem, we’re wise to what the audience is feeling, but we’re not going to do a damn thing to address it.
like, i heavily disagree with you there. i tend to think today that the only thing to actually improve the world is to spread information and with it awareness about the situation.
action doesn’t even matter. once the information is obvious enough, the action will carry through with itself.
tover153@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Exactly. Lampshading is the right word for it.
Once acknowledging the problem becomes the whole move, relevance replaces responsibility. The ad doesn’t promise to fix anything. It just proves it knows the vibe. That awareness is treated as absolution.
“AI is scary, but trust our AI” “Work sucks, so automate yourself out of it” “There’s a wealth gap, here’s a checkout button”
None of it is persuasion anymore. It’s alignment theater. The point isn’t to convince you. It’s to make sure you don’t recoil.
And yeah, the He Gets Us ads are a whole separate category of grim. When even moral language is reduced to brand-safe tone, you’re not being spoken to. You’re being processed.
I’ve got a few essays in the drafting stage on moral coercion, how systems use shared values to narrow choices without looking like force. This ad cycle feels like a case study.