Last month, we switched to a new service for our television channels, going from satellite to a streaming service. It only costs about 40% of what we were paying for satellite, and we receive many of the same channels, and all the ones we most frequently watch. There is one small flaw to it, in that it is harder to skip through commercials. I am seeing a lot of ads that I would have fast forwarded through under the old system.
Besides some of them being very repetitive (some services use the same ads in virtually every break), and the usual mess with so many of them being for drugs where over half the commercials are warnings for all the horrible side effects you risk, there are some early standouts that have me riled up, and my brain short circuiting.
Number One is the girl who smarily asks "What's a Computer?" in an ad for a high powered laptop/tablet hybrid from Apple. Really? You don't know what a computer is? And do you have to be so blithely arrogant about it?
It makes you want to reach through the screen and give this child, who has been wandering alone throughout the city, a big what-for! But then I remember, this isn't her fault. She's just an actress giving a line in a way that the directors and producers probably chose out of dozens of takes. This is what the creators of the ads wanted. This is what executives of Apple approved and greenlit.
It's amazing how many people in line to stop this thing, looked at it and said, "Yeah! That's what we want!"
Number Two (good description) are the ads that Jon Hamm is doing for H & R Block. First, when I sit down to relax and watch something, the last thing I want to do is be reminded that it's TAX SEASON. But beyond that, is the idea that this supposedly first-rank A-List celebrity is out shilling for early refund loans. No! No! A thousand times no! Early refund loans are just a scam for the company doing them for you. You lose a chunk of it just to get it early, and if the refund doesn't come through in the way you think it would (late or not the amount hoped for), you're the one on the line for the difference. You've gone from lending the government your money tax free (which is what happens when you deliberately arrange your taxes in a way to generate large refunds) to paying usurious interest rates for getting an advance on your interest free loan to the government. Jeesh, Jon Hamm, have some dignity!
Listening is the new reading
Sorry. I couldn't find a meme for this one. Audible has a new ad suggesting that the most successful people in our society read a lot. True. Maybe. But I don't read to be "successful". I read because I LOVE TO READ!
It proposes that in our busy world, the way to read is to listen to audio books. It directly equates reading with listening. Ergo, listening is the new reading.
NO! NO! A thousand times NO! I have nothing against audio books. I hope to do some audio books soon, of mine and other's works. Reading aloud is, all modesty aside, the thing I do best (well, at least of those things I can talk about here). And I understand their popularity. I used to listen to some audio books when I had to cross Atlanta in order to get from home to work.
But, it is not the same thing as reading! No, it is not. Listening and reading a book are different things. One is auditory. The other is looking at words in print, and translating them into grand stories, enveloping your mind and being into other worlds.
Can a listener get absorbed into other worlds? It's possible, but ask yourself why so many want audio books? It's so they can multi-task while doing it. Walking, exercising, hosuehold chores, drving, rote computer work. Get too absorbed and you might wind up in a ditch or smashed on the highway. Not so with reading books. You submerse yourself into the world you are reading about.
So go ahead, Audible. Promote yourself. I'll sure appreciate as I get started in narrating audio books. Just don't equate listening to reading. It's not the same thing. It's just not.
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