pit bulls aren’t evil. they just want to be loved.

a woman in a film: *takes another woman’s hand and squeezes it gently in a gesture of support*
my content-starved wlw ass:

a woman in a film: *brushes another woman’s hair tenderly away from her face*
me:
Uncle, do you realize what this means?
The Star
Mars for Aqua 🌟

okay i just had a bad epiphany but corporate interest’s influence on the internet is going to become so much stronger now that generations that are internet naturalized have grown up and starting working as “social media consultants”. advertising is going to become so much more subtle, manipulate your behavior to a greater extent, and completely pervade every aspect of our lives the more we rely on the internet for everything from entertainment to social validation.

what im saying is its scary that corporate twitter accounts are getting good at twitter. to have the same avenue a human would to express themself. its like, an extreme anthromorphism of a brand, and that brand representing a corporate interest, and successfully passing itself off as a sentient entity on twitter, thats really weird to me.

like this is so fucked up. it doesnt immediately read as an advertisement, conceptually it executes the levels of irony and deconstruction that usually make for successful memes in this genre or whatever. its almost subverting itself, but ultimately it still succeeds as an advertisement. it makes me sick. for every misfire of corporations trying to relate (pepsi protest commercial), theres another company getting better at it

okay but like my thing about this is… who is actually eating at these places because shit like this? yeah it’s funny but i never go to wendy’s because a meme, if i go to wendy’s it’s because i want a gross burger and a frosty, same with taco bell and mcdonald’s and wherever the fuck.
i really think that you’re blowing this out of proportion and having very little faith in people’s ability to decide what they want for themselves. it’s just not that deep.

It’s not about the effectiveness of the ads in question, but their complete omnipresence in every aspect and moment of life, and how bizarre and sophisticated the mechanations of advertising have become. If people don’t call attention to these things, they become normal.

The effectiveness of marketing isnt one-to-one, like, “ad says burger is good, I think burger is good, I eat burger.” That was 50 years ago. Y'all, since then these multi-million dollar corporations have been hiring psychologists and sociologists and anthropologists to study how best to get under consumer skin and theyve figured out it’s not about making you WANT a burger,
It’s about creating a Brand Identity - an anthropomorphized personality that your brain fits into an established schema (system of thought) so it’s easier to just drop into the background of your everyday life. It’s not about making you want a burger, it’s about making it so, when you DO want a burger, the first place you think of is Wendy’s, because their ads have made you think about them five time already that day. And most importantly, it’s about making sure you dont realize how often they make you think about them, so you don’t resent how pervasive they’ve become. They do that by tricking your brain into thinking of them as just another human-like personality. Your Funny Meme Friend Wendy’s. Wine Aunt World Market. Woke Jock Nike. Even your Endearingly Unhip Uncle Geico.
(hey also if you want dozens of terrifying examples of what I mean, just type ‘brand identity schema’ into Google like I just did and take a gander at all those scholarly articles discussing how best to acquire consumers, like we’re a fucking commodity)

one time i said i didn’t like the wendys twitter and got called classist for hating retail employees
this shit works. it makes people like Brands. gets under their skin and in to their minds. when i said i didnt like the wendys twitter i personally offended people that viewed wendys as a friend, that viewed the wendys social media manager as a friendly individual that they respected.
the wendys social media manager is not your friend. they don’t even really exist. there’s no one person that writes the tweets for wendys. there’s a team of 20 something year olds that casually observe the latest meme trends and crank out mspaint memes because they know they’ll get retweeted if the memes are relevant.
they trick you in to thinking that Wendys is a hip friendly young person, and they manipulate you in to thinking that disliking marketing is somehow a “problematic” “un-woke” thing to do.
and it works.
install ublock origin. on mobile, block every promoted tweet you see. don’t let them convince you that this shit is normal.


I just wanna say, not only was I extremely correct in my paranoid regarding these posts, but it’s actually gotten way fucking worse already
I’m just going to be blunt about it; America’s depression epidemic is a direct result of the all-encompassing alienation we experience under late stage capitalism, and now private interests are attempting to recuperate the general public’s feelings of hopelessness and despair into marketing material, the spectacle in effect recuperating our despair and making it appear that the powers that be are on our side. That we are being watched over by boardrooms with loving grace, despite the fact that they are part and parcel with the forces of economy that has driven so many people to not see any hope in their lives. By recuperating the public discourse about the root of endemic depression, the status quo is able to trivialize it and sterilize it before before safely incorporating it back into mainstream society. Not only are we unable to strike against our enemy, most of us can’t even see them for what they are, and the rest of us can’t even speak to the truth of what they are capable of.
Pay attention to little bizarre happenings like these, they betray the rest of the iceberg

All of my close childhood friends died… because of the bomb, so I wanted to write a fantasy with the atomic bomb as a theme.
House (1977) Dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi
brightheart
HE SOLVED IT!!!
The “horrible disaster in pitch darkess lit momentarily by camera flash” mood in these paintings is incredible.

President Donald Trump once again unleashed what’s become his presidential hallmark: a bizarre, winding, threatening press conference, this time following his White House meeting with Democratic leaders Friday to try to break the impasse causing the government shutdown.
In a long, meandering briefing in the Rose Garden, Trump told reporters the partial shutdown now heading into its third week could go on for months, even years, if Democrats don’t give him the $5.6 billion he’s demanding to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall. The Democrats have steadfastly refused. The shutdown has affected some 800,000 federal workers — 420,000 of them forced to work without pay — since Dec. 22.
“This is national security we’re talking about,” Trump said. “We’re not talking about games.“
When asked if there was any “safety net” for workers going without pay as the shutdown continues, Trump responded: “The safety net is going to be having a strong border.”
Trump also floated another way he could get his wall: declaring a state of national emergency over border security to build it without congressional approval.
“I could do it if I wanted,” Trump said.

If y’all are curious as to why I get so militant about the politics well it may or may not have something to do with the fact that the president of America is a wild man who believes things he himself made up and who talks about dissolving his own government and installing himself as a dictator as if it ain’t no big deal.
“I could do it if I wanted” indeed. Those words probably gonna haunt my dreams tonight ngl
The safety net for furloughed employees is a strong border? Is Mexico going to pay their wages like they’re going to pay for the wall?
Those employees include hospital staff, emergency services, and other staff of critical support structures. This is going to kill people, if it hasn’t already.
Impeach the bastard.
LOCK HIM UP
TSA screeners are working without pay and some are not doing their jobs properly. A growing number are involved in an informal sick out, causing longer lines.
We already have a shortage of air traffic controllers. One in five are eligible for retirement. If a significant number of them choose to retire rather than stick out the shutdown, we will have a long term problem, especially as the new apprentices in training are also likely to quit.
They have also furloughed all aviation safety inspectors, although they’re being called in without pay as needed.
Tl;dr - if you don’t have to fly right now, don’t.
Other effects: Affordable housing contracts are not being renewed. Nobody has been turned out onto the streets yet, but landlords are cutting back on maintenance.
If the shutdown passes January 20, while food stamp recipients will get money for February (early), they may not get it for March.
FEMA will not have funding after January 31. Some people are still waiting for roof repairs they now won’t get.
The Coast Guard has almost no money left, which, oh! That affects border security. Hey, drug smugglers? All ya need to do is get in a boat. It will also affect safety.
Tl;dr - yes, people are going to die, and we may have a major air disaster. Or another terrorist attack. And more drugs getting into the country.
Yet, 75% of Republicans still support the wall…over American lives.
FDA is stopping inspections on a lot of food types, when we’re already having people sick and dying over lettuce. The FDA workers that are still working are doing so without pay.
Manufacture crisis > declare emergency > seize power = dictatorship








