Oh hi.....here's some photos before my short rant on advertisements.....
mMMMMMM, so gewd.
A trying day at Starbucks at Towncenter... those knee highs are hot, as in, too hot to be wearing during baton rouge summer
And the last photo is from today, before we went over to Kira's for some delicious Fajitas! It was a fun night! :)
Does anyone miss the old days when internet blogging consisted of freeopendiary and xanga, and all we had to complain about was high school or our first jobs, and we weren't bombarded with internet advertisements every second we spent online. I hate advertising.
What I don't like about it is that products and services are presented in such a way that implicates they are things you need, when in fact, they are just things you want. That's the worst part.
Advertising suddenly makes us ten years old again, writing down a ridiculously long christmas list of things we think we need, and once they're purchased, they lose their value. They instantly become something you regret, or something you see as a waste of time and sit in the corner of your closet collecting dust.
Unless of course, you're talking about an Iphone
But honestly, when did someone decide that it was a necessity to have internet and music and instant messaging all readily available at your fingertips no matter where you're standing?
What about the days that we survived without cellphones? without myspace? without an internet blog to share your interesting-to-you, but not-so-interesting-to-them everyday thoughts and feelings? I feel like sometimes we are afraid to be alone.
I read about this vacation rental that's all eco-friendly, and everything is green. I read about a family that went up there without their cell phones and without their laptops and spent a week of vacation, spending quality time, and playing board games at night, going for hikes during the day, and reading books to pass quiet alone time.
And here I am, sitting in front of my computer writing this, and you know what? It's faster. I'll write more quickly than if I used a pen and paper and I'll reach more people by posting this on the internet. I might even "Add tags" so when people search on Vox, my blog entry will pop up. Maybe I'll add the tags "boobs" and "vagina" just for a laugh. After all I have both, so it's relavant.
I just feel like this is so private. I'm here. It's you and me, but really it's just me. I might have an idea about who reads this, but I'm not necessarily speaking to you. It's a one-sided conversation in which it doesn't really matter if you have anything to say or not. It's more of an afterthought. It's irrelevant.
When I look at the amount of time that I could spend on here alone, reading articles that interest me, keeping up with the news, checking my myspace and my friends' myspaces, and reading email, and checking my LSU account, or shopping for something I need (I mean want), or chatting with friends or looking at photographs of the war between Georgia and Russia, or the photographs on Flickr of the balloon festival I wanted to go to here in Baton Rouge, but didn't make it out to because of work. It's all at my fingertips.
And I'm left wondering what kind of affect this has on our relationships. It makes me feel like our relationship with the computer is, at times, a little unhealthy.
It makes me wonder when I suddenly freak out on a road trip because I realize we've left the google map directions at home. "Oh, what will we do now?!" "we are lost! how will we get there?"
And then, someone says something like
"well, we could just go buy an atlas."
And I feel...
retarded.
The point is, the internet and advertising are all fabulous. What would we do without them?
But if you can't imagine being without them for a day....if you can't imagine what it would be like to leave your television and your computer off for an entire 24 hours and read a book instead, then I think you are in dire need of a temporary vacation from them.