Honestly. I used to watch my dad have like 4 channels he could switch between so he didn’t have to do commercials. I used to think that was weird, and indicative of some poor character traits. I was a judgemental little shit.
Now this meme is me. I have become my father.
And you can’t do this anymore, at least with broadcast TV. My local diner as a bunch of TV’s on about the place, all tuned to the local Fox, CBS, NBC, etc. affiliates so you have the rare opportunity to see them all at once. They’re all timed so their commercial breaks coincide with one another. It’s down to the split second – every channel goes to commercial at the same time, for the same length of time. It has to be intentional.
That was mostly the case in the 90s as well. On the 30m mark, everything was wrapping up / starting at the same time. In the middle, you might have 30-90 seconds of a show on another channel that was throwing to commercial at a slightly different time.
-The break meant that there would be at least 15 minutes of no ads after
-During that long break you had the ability to empty your bladder, or get more snacks
-You didn’t get repeats of ads during that singular break
-The ads weren’t targeted to you specifically, but targeted to the viewers of the show you were watching
-The advertisers saw value in “quality over quantity”
Oh my God the repeating ads really are what makes it so much worse. Whenever I watch something on Hulu I have to sit through the same three commercials and it becomes completely mind numbing. Cable had more variety since it wasn’t as targeted.
I’ve never been able to see the point of repeated ads. If I didn’t want the thing 30 seconds ago I’m still not going to want it now. PTL for 30s jump forward, not even fastforwarding ads these days.
I know your question is probably rhetorical, but the answer is that advertising isn’t really about persuading people to buy something specific. Its about creating an association in people’s brains, so that the next time you think about toilet paper, your brain automatically thinks “Charmin” and your decision making changes from “what brand should I buy” to “why not Charmin”.
The more times they yell it at you, the stronger the association gets. They don’t care if you like it or not, they want to train you like an animal.
Yeah sorry not every aspect of my life needs to have advertisements trying to ram themselves down my throat.
Let me just enjoy something without interrupting me every 5-10 minutes.
Also idk about you but commercials on TV were just as infuriating to deal with
All ⚠️ advertising ⚠️ is ⚠️ theft ⚠️ of ⚠️ time
If companies want me to watch them while they pee they can fucking pay me for it.
