ye olde bannre ad debayte againn

[psocoptera]

T Campbell, who writes Fans!, is irate over Comanche, a webcomics autodownloader thingy. So are other people like these guys.

I have a hard time with the "you are morally obligated to not avoid the advertising that supports these sites" argument - broadcast television is, to the best of my knowledge, also supported by advertising revenue, and I see recording so as to skip over commercials as not just a nice idea practically, timesavey and all, but *actively beneficial* in minimizing their brainwashy effects. Not that I believe people are helpless media zombies, but hey, why expose myself more than necessary to something carefully engineered for maximum mind-affecting impact? Web advertising on comic sites is a) lower-budget and less flashy and b) more likely to be for friendly things like other comics or online games than scary things like cars and perfume, and thus comparatively harmless, but still.

I suppose it all comes down to bandwidth, which the webcomic site has to pay for per download and the tv broadcaster does not, but still, the whole language about "cheating" and "stealing" suggests that a good viewer happily complies with the advertiser and is blind to the possibility that it might instead be a fundamentally adversarial relationship.

On the subject of which, what the heck can we do about pre-previews theater ads? I hate hate HATE them, having Coke sold at me on a giant screen in surround sound; what is the right way to fight back? What I really secretly want is a mass movement of audience singalongs during them. Picture everyone in your theater breaking out into "If I Had a Million Dollars" or "Found a Peanut" or something. Wouldn't that be so cool? A nice moment of solidarity and togetherness driving back the creeping horror of Coca-Cola.

Hm, I feel like a bad capitalist now for writing that. But my capitalism is all about seeing the consumer as a locus of power. And sitting immobilized in a theater seat with too-loud sound pounding on me about COKE I do not feel empowered, I feel overwhelmed, in a way that the TV, with its little screen you can walk away from, can't manage.

And on the subject of *that*, who wants to see Sky Captain this weekend? Maybe Sunday? I should probably post to that local list, huh. ::grin::

Comments

[aryky.livejournal.com]

I just went to a film last night with my uncle, who hadn't seen a movie in a cinema for something like ten years previously. It was fascinating watching the ads with him, even though he watches plenty of TV. We both felt as though he was a visitor from some alien culture. He criticized the cinematography of the ads, fairly loudly. But it wasn't exactly a mass movement - there were only four people, total, in the theater.

[allectofromlj]

Me! Me! *raises hand*

Oh, wait. You mean, in BOSTON. damn. I bet you it isn't out in Europe before I leave for the states, and yet it will already have finished showing in the us. that would be my luck.

[irilyth]

As you have probably observed, I've taken to booing during the ads, and have vague hopes that this will catch on. On the other hand, I also worry about being thrown out of the theater by the ushers, which they can presumably do without much cause. I like the idea of singing, although I'm not sure how to implement it, since you really need a smallish crowd to do it. Maybe hand out little leaflets to everyone within arm's reach before the ads start, saying "let's all sing Take Me Out To The Ball Game during the ads"...

[elysdir.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the advertising thing is a difficult question. On the one hand, I agree with most of what you said about it -- but on the other hand, if the income from the advertising is what's allowing the author to continue producing the work, then in some sense avoiding the advertising reduces the likelihood of the author being able to continue. (There were fears when TiVo first came out that it would lead to the end of advertising-funded TV, because if everyone can skip the ads, advertisers will stop paying for the ads.)

But I guess partly I'm reacting to a different argument that I'm worried yours could lead to: the notion that copying music or books or software or movies doesn't hurt the creators. It's not the same as what you're saying -- but some of the arguments are sort of parallel, in an odd sort of way.