this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2026
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Privacy
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Another word for "marketing" or "advertisement" is Manipulation. Shady, manipulative, tactics.
Fuck them. I love Lemmy because it seems like the ratio of like-minded people is much larger here. Nothing better than seeing other principled people that would rather give up some comforts than deal with ads and bend the knee to the pieces of shit that try to push them.
Even products in the supermarket (such as bread!!) come with ads in the fucking plastic wrapper. I have changed my bread brand due to this. I will absolutely give up any comfort to avoid your manipulation. I will fucking shower in cold water if it means I don't bend the knee to pieces of shit.
Don't worry they've solved that, it's called 🩷 𝐼𝓃𝒻𝓁𝓊𝑒𝓃𝒸𝒾𝓃𝑔 😎. That's much less ominous! They just influence!
It’s been a minute so I could be misremembering, but you’re not far off. Another word for public relations (the shaping of public opinion) is propaganda.
Edward Bearnays wrote a book titled Propaganda, where he talks about the need to rebrand the work of Propagandist after it became associated with negative influence during WW2. From what I recall he used the term public relations, but seemed to prefer the term propaganda.
He’s also the person infamous for convincing Americans that we should eat bacon and eggs for breakfast. Another interesting story is about how he advertised to make music rooms in homes trendy, so he could help sell more pianos.
He talks about some of the early manipulation tactics advertisers use. Such as trying to sell you an experience instead of a product. Think of how modern car commercials show a lifestyle more than they show you the car.
It’s an enlightening book that shows that before the war, calling an advertiser a propagandist wouldn’t be out of place. Those propagandist manipulated us into calling the PR now.
Oh, and if I recall correctly propaganda comes from Latin and means “to propagate.”
Well said. It disgusts me a lot, and it also dismays me to see a lot of people don't care at all about ads. I even rememeber people in my old job talking about ads on tv. Boggles my mind.
If I am forced to see or interact with an ad I will do absolutely everything in my power to excise that ad source from my life.