Thu 06/28/12 06:14 AM. Advertising is the great golden wand of the passing
age. And it was so shy! It seemed
to work its great magic invisibly! ... Its original vehicles — the
magazines and newspapers — were so relentlessly
high-minded and virtuous we hardly noticed them flogging soaps and computers
and all the goods of the world.
The shyness of television was never
as convincing, and confined itself to a virtuous class
of shows, but that was surprisingly effective in promoting the
saintliness of the solemn celebrity news readers and the teleprompted
Sunday culture authorities and, in a final coup, educational
television, whose many advertisers were dominated principally by itself.
But
all, all, going, and soon gone. ... Its not that advertising has
died,
far from it! The quantity on the internet in words and inches viewed
probably already dwarfs any previous
era. The terrible tragedy is, its too
cheap! ... No-one needs
or can afford
to pay the odd pitiful ink-stained communist to blither in between the
ads and promote his classes wacko political ideals holiness.
The
efforts to replicate the magazine/television model on the web are all
obvious failures: the channels, the portals, Slate magazine, AOL and
Yahoo and Huffpo ... Its over.
The age is done. ... The golden wand has gone out....