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THE CORPORATION [11/23] Basic Training

Cool World · 321K views · 2007-02-09 · 9:33

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Overview

Chapter 11 of the documentary The Corporation, on how marketing targets children, including the Nag Factor study that taught kids to nag their parents more effectively.

On Hacker News

HN cites it mainly as a damning example of manipulative advertising aimed at children rather than recommending it as a watch.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2009–2018

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What people said

nickpsecurity · 2018-07 · Reference

""brutal capitalism" is both more efficient and more compassionate in the long run" I'm not sure about that. I've watched a lot of scuffles in capitalist markets eliminate most of the competition to turn into lock-in via strong brands, control of territory, copyrights, or patents. The lock-in typically lands on a few companies that become an oligopoly of sorts. These are most noticeable in telecoms, operating systems, big chains of any kind, and so on. Once they form, they barely compete with each other. They mostly screw customers and employees over in common ways to maintain high margins. Internally, they usually form rigid hierarchies that push control more than innovation with the evidence showing they're driven by politics more than performance. If they pay a lot of advertising money, the media will also misrepresent their incompetence taking about how they're in a competitive market, struggling, or so on. Quite a few years on my resume was in one of those companies on Fortune 100 with general public none the wiser. That doesn't even get into all the horrors of capitalism which stim from its incentives and operating environment. These companies systematically mislead people to get talent in the door, demand as much from them as possible, do as little for them as possible, do as much as possible for their controllers, discard them whenever opportune regardless of promises made, externalize as many bad things as possible, and pay bribes to lawmakers to make their evils leg

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corey_moncure · 2017-11 · Criticism

Whereas in my jurisdiction (USA), corporate media conglomerates employ PhD trained child psychologists who research the exact pattern and timing of flashes and other stimuli to catch an iron grip on a child's attention. Our children do not stand a chance. [VIDEO]

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vanderZwan · 2017-09 · Criticism

> From my perspective, I've found various things via advertising that I would have never come across by other means. If you want to make a fair comparison, that should be compared to all the things you didn't find because useless ads took up your time and mental space. Also, whether or not you found something through an ad is not the point; one isn't not going to convince a smoker to quit smoking by trying to convince them that nicotine doesn't make them feel good - it's the other shit about it that is bad. In the case of advertising, there's a lot of cynical manipulation going on. The nagging factor in children's advertising comes to mind as one really evil example: [VIDEO] I've been TV- and ad-free since 2001 (yes, yes, I know: the "how do you know someone doesn't watch TV? They'll tell you" -smugness curse strikes again). In my case it was accidental however: I was living in a student appartment with no access to TV and Internet for over a year, having only books to read and rented movies to watch. Even when forced upon you you start noticing the difference pretty quickly, and wondering how you ever was capable of considering this normal. Nowadays ads just feel invasive, like strangers shouting at me on the street claiming they want to have a conversation while really they just want to get into my pockets.

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Sources

Video by Cool World, played through YouTube.

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