ca·coph·o·ny /kǝ'käfǝnē/ noun a harsh, discordant mixture of sounds. "a cacophony of deafening alarm bells" synonyms: din, racket, noise, clamor, discord, dissonance, discordance, uproar "despite the cacophony, Rita slept on"
Everyday, people are exposed to excessive amounts of advertisements.
You can find them in magazines and newspapers. They're seen on TV and before movies.
They're all over the internet, from simply being on the side of your website page to being in a video you want to watch. They might be a pop up, or they might be in a spam email.
You can find them in the sky, whether they're on a blimp, plane, or helicopter.
They can be found on buildings and inside of buildings. They're in cars, on the outsides of cars, and sometimes on top of cars. They're all over buses, trains, and subways.
You can find them on huge billboards outside. And they're even in public washrooms.
It seems that we have—or at least most of us—have built a filter or immunity to them.
We only let a very select number get through this filter, based on different criteria.
Maybe it's funny. Maybe it has a great cause that deserves attention. Maybe it's a visually appealing piece of work. Maybe it's a combination of all these things?
This filter can be good; it can be a means for raising the bar standard.
If it's a good advertisement, we give it our attention. If it's a great advertisement, ideally, it'll retain our attention. And if its an exceptional advertisement, we might just pass it on for someone's attention.
If the ad hasn't captured our attention, it must not be very good.
However, an extremely bad advertisement might still have the power to grab our attention, but maybe just not for the right reasons.
People are stuck in an endless cycle. Due to our filters and the abundance of advertisements everywhere, our attention spans diminish. And due to our attention spans shrinking, companies are pumping out more and more advertisements everyday to compete for our attention.
Below is a video appropriately named I Dare You To Watch This Entire Video, created by CollegeHumor.
As the name suggests, it's merely a video that dares you, the audience, to watch a boring 3-minute video. It's horrifying to think that most people are incapable of watching a simple, short video, without needing to check their phone, skipping ahead to see what happens, or completing the whole video.
Even if they video was about something interesting, I'm willing to bet that most people are incapable of watching the entire thing in one sitting, without skipping ahead or doing something else at the same time.
We're constantly bombarded by hundreds of ads. Everyday, all day, there's a constant flow of information thrown at us. There's so many different social media platforms, all of which have a feed that's constantly changing and being added to. New media, news, and events are always being created or broadcasted.
It's been said that we're in the Information Age. Or you can call it the Computer Age, Digital Age, or New Media Age.
Here's another video, called Look Up - A Poem That Will Inspire You to Put Down Your Smartphone by T-Series HD.
But it's not just advertisements and information that's on the rise. In a world so large, with so many people, there's more and more companies, products, and services than ever before. There's just so much of so many things!
Every category has subcategories and variations. There isn't just a product anymore; there's different brands that offer this product, different colourways, different models, different flavours, and different package quantities, to name a few. Consumerism is on the rise, and soon enough this planet won't be large enough to contain it all.
How does one weed out the good from the bad?
How do we filter out which advertisements, products, or services to trust?
How does one know when to put down their phone, or turn off their computer?
As a designer and artist, it's almost part of the job description to be constantly taking in information—or rather, taking in inspiration.
Going through images, flipping through magazines and newspapers, and reading books are a means of inspiration. It's a means of knowing trends and therefore, a way to create new trends.
Life is about balance.
There needs to be a balance between taking in information, and having human connection.
There must be balance between technological/digital inspiration, and natural/environmental inspiration.
Inspiration can be found everywhere and anywhere, not just in a phone or tablet, on a computer, or on TV.
Let's get back to advertisements and attention spans though.
Are there are a lot of advertisements in this world? Heck yes!
Are there too many advertisements in this world? I suppose it matches the "way too much" amount of everything else we have in this world.
With all these advertisements around, they allow for great advertisements to stand out. Good ads and great ads will be good and great, no matter what, but the bad ads out there help emphasize and contrast with these better ads.
Then again, if these great ads stand out no matter what, there isn't really a need for the so-so and mediocre ads.
The lengths of attention spans are apparently getting shorter. It doesn't help that certain services cater to these shortening attention spans, with Twitter Tweets limit of 140 characters, Vine's 5-6 second video loop limit, and Instagram's 3-15 second video limit.
Speaking of Instagram, the app that vowed to be the last place to ever have advertisements, have recently introduced sponsored posts. What is the world becoming?
The copious amounts of ads we have doesn't necessarily bother me. However, the amount of pollution, trash, and any non-environmentally friendly ramifications of these ads, is troubling and distressing.
"some traditional festivals were tainted with profanity"
Profanity is everywhere. Swearing is happening all around us. It's in movies and television shows. It's on the internet. It's used by comedians, (motivational) speakers, adults, teens, and the elderly. Profanity is even used by politicians. Swearing in advertisements, why the hell not?
Advertisements don't start trends, they follow them. So if profanity and obscene language is used all around us, why isn't it more common in advertisements? A quick Google Images search will show you that there aren't many advertisements out there that use profanity, especially openly. Sometimes it's censored; sometimes it's subtle or hidden. But why is it something advertisers fear? What's the danger?
If it's clever, why not?
If it's for a cause, why not?
If it's attention-grabbing, why not? If it's relevant, why not? If it's different, why not? If it's relatable, why not? If it's effective, why the !@#$ not?
Because it's controversial. What's wrong with a little controversy?
Because it's offensive. Why is everyone so sensitive? Because it's unprofessional. Hasn't profanity has been used in the workplace environment plenty of times? Because children shouldn't be exposed to it. What's so bad about exposure? Is ignorance a better option? Children can be taught; they seek to be taught. They're sponges of curiousity, so why not satisfy their thirst for knowledge?
I'm not saying to condone swearing from children. Exposure isn't bad, but it becomes a problem if they are not taught that swearing, at their age, is a bad thing. However, one could argue that exposing children and youth to profanity could desensitize them to it. This could either be a good thing or bad thing. If there's swearing or obscene language used in an advertisement, chances are it isn't targeting children. Hell, it's probably not even targeting all adults. It's most likely targeting a certain group of people whom would appreciate or relate to the "inappropriate" ad.
Now, I'm also not saying profanity should be used in all ads, and start appearing in anything and everything. I believe there's a time and a place for everything, and if the time and place calls for swearing, so be it. If the art directions calls for the design to go just a little bit further to better communicate the emotion and passion, and the solution just happens to be a swear word, I don't see the big deal. I don't get offended when swearing pops up in a conversation I'm having with someone, so maybe my opinion is biased. Granted, if it's excessive, I might begin to worry or be cautious. Some of my favourite designers and artists swear; some of them are even known for using foul language. It doesn't make them any less of a designer, artist, or person. I prefer it, really. To me, they come across as genuine, raw, and real. They're more relatable. I feel more connected to them, as a person, as a human, rather than just some famous person.
I recently had the pleasure of attending a talk by Erik Spiekermann, a well-known German typographer and designer. One of the first things he said was that he tends to swear a lot. With English not being his first, second, third, or maybe even fourth language, to him, swear words are just words. Amazing does not begin to define his work in design and type. He knows the rules, but knows when to break them. His experience and expertise is on a level out of this world, but because of his mannerisms and casual language, he is—in my eyes—quite personable and relatable. Spiekermann's amount of swearing doesn't quite compare to, say, Aaron Draplin's amount of swearing, another designer whose talk I also enjoyed recently. However, Draplin doesn't seem any less personable than Spiekermann. These guys know their stuff when it comes to design. It comes through when they speak, and there's no doubt in my mind that the profanity that they use has something to do with it. When they speak, they sound like they know what they're talking about, and then some. Their use of profanity sets a tone, they sound passionate and raw. They sound human, they sound genuine. So you believe them, whether or not you did before they started speaking. If this can be achieved through voice, why not through advertising? Surely, it can be risky. It could be dangerous, maybe offensive, but if it's effective, isn't it worth the risk? If it's going to effectively get your message across, would you not be willing to cross the line?
Do brands purposely misrepresent themselves?
