And while there may have been some influence at the margins by media -- all the stuff about creating the "positive cultural association" with the cool pot-smoking rebel vs. "negative cultural association" with the fucked-up junkie loser etc. -- it's not the main thing at all
-
-
Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy and
Drug use rates had way more to do with someone's overall material circumstances, which swamped the effect of TV commercials and celebrity endorsements and so on
1 reply 2 retweets 26 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy and
Anyway it's not just DARE, DARE is just the most obvious embarrassing failure It was a long long time ago and I don't think I did a particularly good job but I wrote my undergrad thesis on 20th century American advertising, and the weird detached incestuous world ad men lived in
1 reply 3 retweets 26 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy and
DARE was an outgrowth of the Ad Council, which has existed for decades (since WWII) as a nonprofit initiative for the ad industry to sell itself to the government as using their powers for good to propagandize people into being better citizens and not just being greedy bastards
1 reply 8 retweets 29 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy and
And the evidence that ANY of the Ad Council's campaigns actually WORK (whether or not you approve of the cause in question -- it includes wartime propaganda and military recruitment but also public health campaigns, antiracism ads, etc) has always been very sketchy
1 reply 5 retweets 20 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy and
It always comes back to "Okay logically there's probably some effect of blasting this stuff at people all the time but the problem is all the data is coming from the people getting paid to tell you you're not wasting your money The principal-agent problem is massive"
1 reply 3 retweets 23 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy and
My thesis was a typical college thesis about the idea that these ads are something the professional class felt compelled to create *for their own sake*, as a way of telling a story to themselves about what American values were and what kind of citizens they themselves were
1 reply 2 retweets 25 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy and
An industrial-capitalist version of ritual and religion -- whether the ads ever really change anything is almost beside the point, just as the ancients never really did empirical studies if their prayers to the gods actually changed the likelihood of a good harvest
2 replies 2 retweets 23 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy and
And that's kind of why I have this attitude about this whole discussion Like if you just fundamentally find it offensive there's pro-military imagery in Captain Marvel then fine, I won't argue with your right to reject it for that reason
1 reply 2 retweets 24 likes -
This Tweet is unavailable.
If it's a material argument then show me the data that Captain Marvel actually increased Air Force enrollment
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.