Make the Ad Guys Pay.

• Author: Ehrenreich, Barbara
• Position: Advertising is too pervasive

Do you feel unloved and unnoticed, like a single tiny worthless atom in the ever-expanding gas that is mass society? Well, you are right to feel that way. No one--outside of perhaps a half-dozen people, most of whom are faking--cares in the least about your search for a soul-mate, your exercise regimen, or the terrible things that bowl of chili did to your esophagus. But here's the good news: Even if hardly anyone is willing to pay attention to you, many thousands of important people are scheming to get your attention. In mass consumer society, there is one precious thing about each individual, no matter how lowly or no-account that individual may be, and this is the attention he or she can potentially apply to the ever-proliferating ads and commercials around us.

Among advertising's brave new frontiers are bathroom stalls, the annoying little stickers on fruits, supermarket checkout dividers, the plastic bags that enclose your dry-cleaning, the baggage carousels at airports, and the bottoms of green hole cups at golf courses, whatever they may be. EDS--Ross Perot's old company--is testing talking ads on ATMs: You won't just get cash, you'll get free advice on how to spend it. Some gas stations have installed TV-like monitors to regale you with commercials at the pumps. Rental cars are beginning to come with cassettetapes full of ad-rich local travel tips. Tractors in New Jersey tow special steamrollers that imprint ads on the beach so that whether you look down at the sand or up at the ad-bearing planes in the sky, you'll be reminded to reach for a Corona and excise that unsightly bikini hair.

You'll go to the toilet stall, hoping to pick up some hot new phone numbers or savor sketches of your co-workers' genitals, only to be briefed on the latest mutual fund. You'll reach for a plum and learn of a new video to rent--and if this seems like a trivial intrusion, imagine how Eden might have turned out if that apple had carried a tiny sticker bearing the message, LIAR, LIAR. There is no moment of your life, insignificant as that life may be, that Madison Avenue is not plotting to invade, conquer, and colonize. The goal is nothing less than to occupy your entire cranium, where ads will drive out all those economically useless musings about the purpose of life and replace them with an endless tape saying, "Now with calcium ... One investor at a time ... Softer and more absorbent than ever ... Like a rock ... Go to bed, Tweetie Bird...."

Will we...