It's time Travel on the web! Political Satire, Cartoons, Art & Short Stories to free your mind
“Advertising.”
“I don’t understand. What was it for?”
“Well, you used to be able to have pretty much whatever you wanted, even if you didn’t really know that you wanted it. That’s what advertising was for.”
“How did that work?”
“Well, for example, we used to watch a lot of television, but it was a lot different to what we have now, because back then we had advertising. When you watched a program on the television, it would stop every few minutes and be replaced by an advertisement. Then, you’d get to see something that you might want – or at least you might after watching the ad. you see, they’d show you different things, like food, clothes, cars, or even toilet paper, but when they did, they made it seem extra special. It was like everyone else was eating it, or wearing it, driving it, or wiping with it, and if you weren’t
then there was something a little odd about you, because you weren’t fitting in with what everyone else seemed to be doing. And no one wanted to seem odd; you had to do what everyone else was doing, otherwise after watching these ads you got the feeling that you were missing out, or weren’t quite as good as everyone else.”
“So, how did you actually get all these things? It seems like you wanted all of them. How did they decide what to distribute to who if everyone wanted everything?”
“Oh, well, you’d decide what you wanted, and then you went out and bought it with money; you know, I showed you some once.”
“But where did you get the money from? Did everyone get a certain amount or something?”
“Well, we were paid to work then. Like, if I worked forty hours, or sold X number of things to someone else, then I got paid for it. You then used that money to buy what you wanted, or at least, some of it. It never was quite enough; you know, there was so much we wanted, and that’s where credit cards came in. What you couldn’t actually pay for right away - you know, with what money you actually had - you could charge to a sort of account and pay for it later”.
“Later? When?”
“Um, well, you’d go to work, earn some more money, pay the next credit card bill, and so on. But you never seemed to really catch up or get ahead.”
“And everyone did this?”
“Yeah, well, pretty much. It was just how things were done. But not everyone everywhere – only those in the more wealthy countries. People in poorer countries didn’t have all these things.”
“So what did they do?”
“Oh, I don’t know. They must have done without.”
“Sounds like us now.”
The little boy looked up at his Grandpa and said, “I think we’d better be getting back now. I’m getting low on oxygen, and if we don’t go soon we miss out on our evening meal allocation.”
Grandpa nodded absently and cast one more glance back as the sun set on a pair of crumbling golden arches.
***
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