The internet runs on ads.

Ad companies pay for all the “free” popular social media we use. Ad companies dictate to social media what their clients want their ads to be associated with, not associated with, and drive media of all kinds to push inflammatory and click-bait content that drives engagement and views. It’s why you indirectly can’t swear, talk about suicide, drugs, death, or violence. Sure, you technically can unless ToS prohibits it, but if companies tell their ad hosts they don’t want to be associated with someone talking about guns, the content discussing guns gets fewer ads, fewer ads = less revenue, low-revenue gets pushed to the bottom.

So lowbrow political rage bait, science denialism, and fake conspiracies drives people to interact and then gets pushed to the top because it gets ad revenue. Content that delves into critical thought and requires introspection or contemplation languishes.

Ads are destroying society because stupid and rage sells views.

  • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
    11·
    7 hours ago

    I disagree. James Campbell was not a perfect man, but he did coalesce what humans like to see in a story most of the time. It’s not a perfect scenario like he claimed, but more of a guide to most cultures. If you look at boring structures of story, it’s usually because it doesn’t follow western structure (the hero’s journey). Joseph Campbell hated Noh from Japanese culture because he couldn’t follow it as a hero’s journey. Even if he didn’t speak the language, he could usually tell when they followed it. I’m assuming that’s what you’re talking about when cherry picking. He’s right in that to a westerner, it will be hard to understand and may be boring. To the Japanese though, it’s been around a long time.

    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
      12·
      7 hours ago

      He’s right in that to a westerner, it will be hard to understand and may be boring.

      Ok, but he is wrong in believing that says anything meaningful about Storytelling, it is just a shitty mirror to our own failings as a culture to point out this repetitive structure, encourage people to repeat it more and then idolize it as “universal” when it isn’t.

      Over the last few decades, this structure has come to dominate much of popular storytelling, and Hollywood cinema in particular. With so many bestselling novels and international blockbusters using the Hero’s Journey to great success, it would seem at first glance that Campbell was right—that most or all great stories can be distilled down to a formula, which is universally applicable across time and place.

      However, as we’ll be exploring in today’s blog post, Campbell’s theories aren’t always a perfect fit for the needs of storytellers in the real world. The Hero’s Journey is not as universal as Campbell would claim—and the framework is weighed down by Campbell’s own antisemetic and sexist thinking.

      …

      “projected Anglo-Western storytelling and cultural values onto Indigenous mythic narratives, which in fact have very different storytelling norms and serve a very different purpose to the individualistic striving for self fulfilment which he identified [as the key to all storytelling].”

      In other words, Campbell cites superficial similarities between myths of different cultures as evidence for the claim that the stories of all cultures share an underlying purpose, i.e. the dramatic reenactment of the individual’s quest for self fulfillment.

      In the process, he ignores overwhelming ethnographic evidence that the very idea of an atomized, individual “self” separated from clan, species, etc. is a relatively new one in the history of human thought, and that such a striving self is not a central feature in stories from many parts of the world.

      https://freerange.com/blog/joseph-campbell-history-and-antisemitism-critiquing-the-heros-journey

      Do I really need to explicitly connect why this broken conception of stories is advantageous to the Advertising Industry? It encapsulates the full extent of artistry within the bounds of capitalism and subsumes the work of the artist as simply the cherry on top to help a product be sold. EVERYTHING an artist can do is just a manipulation to impose a very particular narrative of a set of events into the minds of the audience.

      • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
        11·
        7 hours ago

        Did you read what I said? I said the same thing as what you quoted from the blog, lol. The other formats are mostly boring to a westerner’s ear. It’s easy enough to figure out for yourself, watch movies and advertising before Star Wars. Star Wars is when the Hero’s Journey became popular and when advertising would have started to switch over too. Check for yourself if the movies followed it in America and Europe before Star Wars. Hint, the acclaimed ones mostly did.

          • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
            21·
            7 hours ago

            Wait, do you really think you’re right allllll the time? I’m not sure what chip you have on your shoulder, but you’re obviously butt hurt about something. Again, Campbell is not perfect, but he did give writers a handy guide to jump off from. You seem like you’re trolling or think you’re super duper smart or something? Smart people try to see other people’s side.

            • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
              12·
              7 hours ago

              Why do you feel the need to defend Campbell so passionately? Is he your daddy or something?

              Also yeah, I am the smartest person here, I am the hero so duh, obviously?

              • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
                11·
                7 hours ago

                Why do you feel the need to defend Campbell so passionately? Is he your daddy or something?

                Ahh, the troll shows it face. Have a wonderful day.