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Comment by the_af | Hacker News Reader

I agree, this is a common (and justified) sentiment.

I had a high school teacher give us a book about print advertising (this was way before the internet was a common thing) and how it deceives. How they sell cars with sexy women, how instead of selling a product they sell an unrelated image of success (which is not really tied to the product). It was a nice book, with lots of photos and examples, and all about how advertisement is designed to deceive and encourage a "need" that wasn't there before.

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Actually advertising works best when it exploits the needs and desires you already feel. The farther away it gets from those, the more expensive it gets. That said, ever since the sixties it does sell things based on people's need to project their status and image, as a way of defining oneself to the outside world. People buy things for what the thing does, plus what owning and using the thing says about your personality. And people seem to be prone to accept these symbolic identifications less critically then they do performance claims about what the product does. Bob Dylan said it best:

  Advertising signs that con you\
  Into thinking you're the one\
  That can do what's never been done\
  That can win what's never been won\
  Meantime life outside goes on
  All around you

But umm, I don't think it's always a bad thing. Or rather, it's not bad by default.

I agree. The point is that many people, including Bob Dylan, my high school teacher and many others seem to think advertisement purposefully misleads (or exploits) in order to sell. I tend to (partially) side with this opinion myself, but that's not the main point of my comment.

I'm supporting jasode's comment that lots of people do consider advertising morally objectionable. I believe this assertion is not controversial regardless of what one personally thinks about ads.

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