Advertising, Pilate and Arrogance

First and foremost, I want to rant about how much information is actually accessible about us. I was on YouTube just a few hours ago and noticed an advert box on the side trying to get me to buy comic book related TV shows such as Spiderman and Avengers. On closer look this box reveals that it knows I recently bought the X-Men cartoon from play.com.

This is really concerning. How has YouTube got hold of this information? Or more importantly how has an external company got hold of this information and then passed it on to YouTube to get me to click?

I’m just saying this is really not right?

Secondly...

 I was watching Family Guy again the other day and noticed a sketch where Pontius Pilate and Judas meet and celebrate because they both want to ‘crucify the son of God’, then they march off merrily arm in arm.

 

(Sorry about subtitles, this is the only version from youtube I could find)

Now I’m all for Religion not being taken too seriously on these programmes but only if the facts are right. Don’t take the mick out of something based on false information, this becomes annoying and misleading.

It is clearly stated in the Bible that Pontius Pilate believes Jesus to be innocent of any crimes, and only goes through with the trail because the public are close to rioting. He washes his hands in that symbolic scene.

So to depict Pilate as wanting to execute Jesus is just wrong.

This feeds in nicely to what I originally planned to talk about. I really cannot stand it when people make assumptions about situations based on how they expect it to have gone. By this I mean they guess a certain event took place a certain way and then as far as they are concerned that is set in stone. This really annoys me.

Example: A guy and a female friend go out for a drink, something happens and the girl gets spiked and therefore really ill. Guy takes girl back to his apartment so he can watch her and make sure she makes it through the night. In these circumstances the best place to put the girl is in the bed, it is most comfortable and easiest place to lay someone on their side. Next morning the Girlfriend of the guy arrives and see’s the girl in his bed. Bam.

She immediately assumes that the guy cheated on her. The guy protests and tells exactly what happens but the girl does not believe. She assumes that her view of the situation is right and that the guy must automatically be lying and covering up.

Reality check here people. Things are hardly ever what they appear at first glance. So many bizarre things happen in the world that make things look suspicious, but we have to remember that every scenario has a number of different possible paths leading to it. Humans have this irritating habit of assuming the worst or the one that fits most in worldview and then regarding anything other to their view as an excuse or a lie.

This arrogance is one of the few things to truly make me angry. I guess the moral of this is don’t just assume the most likely circumstances are the true ones, but its only ‘likely’ by your world view and not in reality. Having said this, a situation like that does require care as obviously people do lie about situations to get themselves out of trouble. So the key here is don’t just assume but try and find out all of the facts and evidence before you start getting arrogant and throw around accusations.

Advertising

We live in a world now where we cannot go anywhere nor do anything without a constant barrage of advertisements.

We live in an age of communication, making it ridiculously easy for businesses to fill our minds with ideas and hints usually relating to a product they are trying to sell us.

This is simply the way the world as we know it works and certainly will not be changing anytime soon, but some things do annoy me.

First of all... when are they going to make a cleaning product that kills that extra 0.1% that all the others seem to have a problem with...?

I picked up a leaflet about virgin media the other day which actually says that for an extra £3 a month you can have free TiVo activation.

This blatantly this not free. The activation of the box may be free but the product itself is not. Adverts know all too well what words trigger certain thoughts in our mind. Always be careful of something advertised as free. This simply is not true; the money for the product is coming from somewhere else, possibly something else they are trying to sell you.

The same thing applies with the print press. Journalists are very good at using buzz words that influence an emotional response in you. As long as people are cautious about this and think about what they read it is fine. It's when people believe everything they read or see that problems begin. This relates a lot to my previous post about prejudices. Often it’s through these careful uses of language that prejudices can emerge.

DFTBA