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Deceiving us has become an industrial process.
- Teresa Nielsen Hayden
Any ad consciously attended to is comical.
Ads are not meant for conscious consumption.
They are intended as subliminal pills for the subconscious in order
to exercise an hypnotic spell, especially on sociologists.
- Marshall McLuhan
Stay Tuned was an intermittent, long-running project where I commented sardonically on various bits of print and television advertising. It was a fun project, which is why I restarted it so many times, but it was easy to run out of things to say ... which is why I stopped it so many times.
It may yet come back, but ... read the final item below. At the end of 2007 it was clear that the nature of advertising itself was undergoing a sea change. As I write this (2009), that evolution is not finished; in fact, it may be barely begun. I don't rule out the idea that there will be a Stay Tuned again ... but if it happens, it will be very different, just as advertising itself will be very different.
One word about formatting. Stay Tuned was always, throughout its history, in light text on a dark gray or black background. Links and most quoted ad text were orange. In this wiki I can't easily change the background color or the link colors - but it would be a nuisance to go back and change all the orange titles and quoted text. So orange they stay.
Version 5
29 July 2007 The Cult Of the Expert
23 July 2007 Buy Gum
16 July 2007 Four For Bridge: Russell Stover Snickers at Adult Diaper Dum-Dums
9 July 2007 Why Are You Surprised?
25 June 2007 Miracle and Wonder
18 June 2007 Stir-Fried Random: Seven Songs About Seven Foodstuffs (Plus One)
11 June 2007 Meat the Summer
3 June 2007 Why Bother, and Other Findings
22 May 2007 Avatars: A Brief Conversation
13 May 2007 Mother's Day, the Visible Behemoth, and Razors Redux
30 April 2007 One Good Ad
22 April 2007 Rag and Bone Buffet: Coins, Sandwich Kits, Razors, and Other Bad Ideas
16 April 2007 Philately and Numismatics
9 April 2007 Participative Paper and Perspiration
1 April 2007 Easter Report: Tie-Ins, Star Wars, and the Peeps Front
26 March 2007 Things That Annoy My Wife, and Other Delights
19 March 2007 Circularity: Irish Cleaning Mascara OTC
11 March 2007 Who Owns the Bake-Off?: More Perils of Pillsbury Culture
6 March 2007 Elapsed Time: Goulet, Contessa, Cheesecake, Goldfish, and Whopperettes
Version 4
13 July - 6 November 2000:
It's Not Easy Being Green/Cran*America/
Who Knows?/Sputnik!/
Pruning Old Names/Barbie Report/
Cat of Nine Tales/More Cattiness/
Postcards from the Edge
Version 3
Version 2
Version 1
5 october 97
one last set of odds and ends
28 september 97
fact checking, set dressing, and critic's disease
21 september 97
soup tales, trend watch, and a bad aroma
14 september 97
Selling Female
7 september 97
trend watch, bad poetry, and sloppy (joe) emoting
31 august 97
it all tastes the same anyway (a short screed)
24 august 97
a visit to the stomach lining
17 august 97
we return after hiatus with much miscellany
27 july 97
line extension, extruded goo, and diapers
20 july 97
grocery stores and other miscellanea
13 july 97
pre-cooked bacon, razors, and crockery
6 july 97
Sweeping Olestra Under the Rug
29 june 97
amazing can opener and mutant pickles
22 june 97
film overpromotion, and bad credit
15 june 97
fungus-free, kitty pate, and the pepsi plate
8 june 97
bath tissue, flag cookies, and coin tricks
plus: Drugged Out and Climbing the Pyramid
1 june 97
cereal, more cereal, and the squibb vendetta
25 may 97
Corporate Schizophrenia
18 may 97
bad copy, cholesterol report, and the giant frog
11 may 97
no java, domain games: web matters
4 may 97
the lost world of cereal; k-y gets sexy
27 april 97
milk and potatoes, and some gender issues
20 april 97
The Cold War
13 april 97
still more tampons, and the doll museum
6 april 97
more tampons, and bad ideas in food
30 march 97
Official McRules
23 march 97
trend watch, and an appearance from fabio
16 march 97
tampons, plus a lot of miscellania
9 march 97
cheesegoo, cereal, and the fine print
2 march 97
trend watch, strange bedfellows, and the grease patrol
plus: Green Means Healthy and Absolut Self-Effacement
The material on these pages is copyright © 1997-2007. All rights reserved.
It is assumed that every brand name, slogan, corporate name, symbol, design element, et cetera mentioned in these articles is
a protected/trademarked entity, the sole property of its owner(s), and acknowledgement of this status is implied. When advertising materials
are excerpted here it is for express purposes of commentary and criticism, and thereby protected under the Fair Use provisions of
U.S. copyright law.
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