the shrewdness of apes

in the Sartre-adapted movie of my (after)life, i am forced to spend all eternity as a "Secret Agent" in the Girls Intelligence Agency. one look at the about us page should tell you just about everything you need to know. i made the further mistake of delving into some of the message boards. it's really all too horrible to even contemplate - using the lure of free stuff to put tween and teen girls to work as pawns in the marketing and advertising of fads and novelties for the gain of capricious corporations whose goals are to turn kids into unthinking ultra-consumers rather than critical thinkers with opinions beyond which hair care products are the best. i'm not naive enough to think that we can rid the world of advertising and marketing or that they serve no useful functions (though it's sometimes hard to see what those are when you've just spent 30 minutes removing spam comments from your blog), but this shit is just egregious. i'm gonna have to produce an extended Bill Hicks rant to cleanse the palate:

"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself. No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself. Seriously though, if you are, do. Aaah, no really, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers, Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself. Planting seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, "he's doing a joke..." there's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking machinations. I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart." Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags! "Ooh, you know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've done research - huge market. He's doing a good thing." Godammit, I'm not doing that, you scum-bags!

"Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill's very bright to do that." God, I'm just caught in a fucking web! "Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market - look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar..." How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don't you?"