
Fred Rogers wouldn't have wanted to appear in a Google ad - goldenskye
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-linn-fred-rogers-google-20181104-story.html
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sincerely
GDPR discussion aside, this seems like an example of something I've been
thinking about: why are we (societally etc) okay with ads that have basically
nothing to do with the product?

~~~
DaveWalk
To me, it's the end game for consumerism. The products themselves just get in
the way -- the feeling is what you really want to have.

It's not new, I think. Just perhaps a little more blatant, and for more
companies, than previously.

~~~
Pulcinella
It is at least the end game for marketing and advertising. E.g. Red Bull
marketing wants to sell you the feelings of a life style, not a caffeinated
beverage.

It’s definitely been around for a long time for some companies (I think auto
manufacturers have been trying to sell cars = personal freedom and status as
long as the car has existed) and you could argue that governments and
religions have been doing it all of history, but I do agree that a lot more
companies have been doing it the past several decades. Every damn podcast ad
has to be about how a razor, mattress, or pair of underwear is a defining,
empowering lifestyle choice.

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tomjen3
I think there is a danger, because to many having a car is a person freedom
(and a not inconsiderable one). If you are selling the benefits, selling the
benefit that you can go anywhere you want with a car is a pretty obvious
choice.

As for the style: conspicuous consumption may have been the first consumption,
after basic subsistence.

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makecheck
When this first came on, I thought: oh, did someone make a new documentary? It
was full of nostalgic nice things that Mr. Rogers was known for. It brought
back memories.

And then, it ended in the cheapest, most offensive, most un-Mister-Rogers way
possible: just a Google ad. I refuse to even let myself recall what crappy
product apparently demanded the outright abuse of a man’s lifetime of genuine
contributions to society out of some sense of clever advertising.

This feels like a bunch of Google executives just took a can of spray paint to
deface everything that Mr. Rogers ever did. And Google, you don’t understand
_anything_ about _why_ Mr. Rogers was so great.

~~~
slowmovintarget
Alphabet removed "Don't be evil" from their code of conduct and then... Kill-
bots, military AI, Chinese search engine with built in censoring and key-
logging... Why not this, too?

They've cancelled many of these after backlash, but not all of them.

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Aeolun
“Cancelled”

I don’t believe for a minute that they won’t be renamed and developed by some
people they’ve now identified as not giving a shit.

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feri339
I doubt it somehow. At least near to mid-term, if it would get out, the
reputation damage with the public and much worse the employees would probably
be a lot higher than the gains. Alphabet needs to be the most attractive place
to work for. Or at least close to it. They live and die by that.

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mxstbr
“Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European
countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options
that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue
to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with
our award-winning journalism.”

Yeah I can really see how that impacts Fred Rogers /s

How hard can it be to build a publishing website in a privacy-respecting
manner? It's been a while since GDPR was introduced.

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CydeWeys
And this from the fourth largest newspaper in the entire US and the largest
newspaper of the second largest city, no less.

I just in Europe last week and it was infuriating how many US-based newspapers
couldn't even be loaded. Americans travel abroad, and foreigners read domestic
news sources. The LA Times isn't just local news; it's cited widely in, say,
Wikipedia articles, and those are read globally. So to refuse to display any
content in Europe is a huge middle finger.

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paulddraper
Do you believe LA Times misjudged their cost-benefit analysis of EU
publication?

Or do you think a cost-benefit is the wrong approach?

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gpm
Both.

The cost to providing a minimal EU only view (using the inverse of the current
"should I block" function) that complies with the GDPR should be near 0.

The benefit, both in terms of advertising revenue, and network affects driving
more non-EU viewers, should be high.

It's not plausible to me that an accurate cost-benefit analysis says "don't
publish to the EU".

Separately, as journalists I expect them to be willing to spend some amount of
effort (and it shouldn't take much) to report as widely as possible, even if a
strict cost-benefit analysis suggests they shouldn't.

The fact that they aren't willing to do this brings their motivation, and thus
their integrity, into question.

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twblalock
> Separately, as journalists I expect them to be willing to spend some amount
> of effort (and it shouldn't take much) to report as widely as possible, even
> if a strict cost-benefit analysis suggests they shouldn't.

> The fact that they aren't willing to do this brings their motivation, and
> thus their integrity, into question.

Newspapers are businesses. If they don't make enough money they will have to
close down, and then nobody gets to read their journalism anymore. So cost-
benefit analyses cannot be avoided.

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en4bz
It's disconcerting to say the least that someone can own your likeness after
you die.

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casefields
Then he should've specified that in his will. If people have such a problem
with his estate making money off his likeness, then name and shame them.

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Pulcinella
I don’t think anyone should have to specify that they don’t want their memory
to be exploited financially.

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flycaliguy
Working in entertainment has plenty of unusual side effects. You could argue
that he commodified himself before anybody else did.

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Noos
I doubt fred rogers would have liked being deified as some form of secular
saint by nostalgic adult info workers either, nor his face plastered on
t-shirts, motivational books, etc.This is just shameless enough to get you
thinking about that.

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8bitsrule
_Google paid an undisclosed, presumably large amount for Rogers’ voice, words
and music. But it’s hard to understand why the heirs to his production company
would compromise his integrity in this way._

Not hard to understand, but disappointing. Fred's high standards for how
children should be treated were ... advanced.

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pasbesoin
I'm sorry, but this is just wrong.

Some things should remain inviolate.

In this case, not just for the memory, but for the new children who continue
to engage with Rogers' program (it will run in repeats and streaming for years
and years) and experience its commercial free attention and insight.

Further, Fred Rogers was genuine. This commercial is disingenuous.

You should take a hard look at yourself, Google. (Speaking to individual
Googlers, where the corporate structure refuses to.)

~~~
plink
His heirs should take a hard look at themselves. Then again, maybe they did
and all they found was need.

~~~
pasbesoin
That, I don't have an answer for.

However, I don't find it absolving what I observe in today's Google and all
the "business" and "marketing" types who appear to have come to dominate it.

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jwiley
How is this different than the "Think Different" Jobs era ads with Einstein
and Martin Luther King?

Or the giant American flags waving over every car lot? Or pictures of veterans
learning to walk again on an add for Prudential insurance?

This is a very old marketing game, and I'm sure whatever qualms the team
creating it had, if any, were overruled by the need to make it rain and get
bonuses and keep all of us engineers employed.

"Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack."

~~~
bredren
I too thought of this campaign. Fwiw, I do think Apple and Google are
different today in how they handle consumer privacy. That includes how
information collected on minors or new adults is used.

I also do not think Apple would use historical figures in this way anymore.

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village-idiot
They don’t need to anymore.

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steve-benjamins
Why do commercials try to pluck our deepest heartstrings? What is this genre
of aspirational commercials that's become such a cliche?

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lodi
Because it's effective. If you're advertising specs like "grams of sugar in
your cola", someone else can swoop in and make a competing product that
surpasses you in whatever concrete metrics you advertised. If you can
associate your cola with "warm fuzzy childhood memories of Christmas", it's
game over for other competitors. They not only have to match specs, but now
also displace _feelings_. People _identify_ as Coke people, or Pepsi people.

Also for some products, you literally can't advertise the features; the most
precise mechanical watch in the world is completely dominated by a 30 cent
happy meal Casio digital watch. That's why advertising for luxury watches is
all centered around a "you made it [to graduation, to financial stability, to
the upper class, to retirement]" theme.

~~~
steve-benjamins
Thanks. Very clearly explained.

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angel_j
Advertising at children should be banned. Parents should consider it no less
than predatory, and act accordingly.

Children can't consent to all the psycho-behavioral research and artfully
composed subliminal content a modern advertisement delivers. It's creepy that
we accept there are adults in offices with whiteboards and Adobe products
thinking hard about how to influence and manipulate children.

~~~
astazangasta
This is the society that produced Fruit Loops and Lucky Charms; the notion
that it cares at all about children, or anyone else, is rubbished by the child
obesity statistics. What's creepy is that we've built a society that rewards
this mentality with greater power: those who are able to successfully market
disgusting crap to children are "winners".

If you have a problem with this, you have a problem with capitalism.
Advertising is nothing. There are people out there, right now, designing,
manufacturing, shipping and deploying all sorts of lethal devices that are
maiming and killing children all over the world.

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angel_j
Of course I have a problem with capitalism! But I don't believe that society
chose all those things (branded cereal madness, etc), I think it was more or
less thrust on them.

That people seem more interested in getting ahead and pleasing their egos,
instead of trying to repair or escape, is a kind of syndrome—the syndrome of
being trapped in an idealogy.

DGMW, I would love to berate parenting, childcare, and education in the US; I
mean, I would just beat it about the brow for being so retarding, if I could

Like, how do you trade middling entertainment and financial reward for
terrible, indoctrinating, media and education for your offspring? You must be
some kind of real selfish idiotic shitbrain to send your children to grade C-
public school, while you go off and sit at a desk for peanut pay so you can
afford, what?, convenient foodstuffs and the trappings of dignified success in
a system that yr suspicions suggest doesn't care about you? FOH!

But no, I can only suppose a syndrome, and blame no one. The majority are
being used by capitalists, and if they grow in that mold, knowingly or not,
successful or not, it's not their fault; there's no obvious, non-serious, way
out of capitalist subjugation, except for the American Dream, which is ofc to
become one of them.

So, I think it tactical to treat this kind of spectre—invasive media campaigns
aimed at children—as an outside, enemy, force; (today, all parents of young
people, were themselves targeted by these forces, so they have the right to be
pissed about it); If nothing else, people can get behind anti-child-predation,
even if they aren't ready to stop the military industrial complex, or
capitalism.

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99_00
>Rogers, who died in 2003, spoke out against commercialization aimed at
children. “The question is not,” he once said, “what can we sell the children
and families who use ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood?’ or even ‘What can we give
them?’ but rather ‘Who are they?’ and ‘What do they bring to the television
set?’”

what does this mean?

