There are lots of cultural opposition movements online, like against work exploitation, consummerism, car culture, surveillance, intellectual property, etc. I can find communities on lemmy for all those topics. But regarding a more general opposition to advertisements and marketing, other than the occasional person telling others to use adblockers online (what about ads in every day life?), I fail to see organized attempts to challenge advertisements. There is a lot that can be scrutinized. Ethical concerns such as manipulation, lack of consent and just the simple fact your attention is for sale. The effects range from damage to environment, to our mental health, to harming industries themselves, lowering product quality and maintaining monopolies.
With as tech illiterate as normies are, no. It takes a lot of work to try to live ad free today.
I can help them out as much as I can but its their choice to stay in walled garden social media and use 3 corporate websites on the whole internet, of course theyre going to be spammed with ads
The entire world generally runs on a capitalist/free market economy. Free markets rely on advertising. There’s no feasible way to remove advertising from the equation without other radical systemic change. Massively increased regulation sounds slightly more feasible, but not if we keep barreling in the direction of oligarchy.
We (Fediverse users in general) could start one. It doesn’t need to start big, those things tend to snowball (in a good way) if people can relate to them. What we’d probably need is:
- a space to hang around, share info, and discuss the topic. A Lemmy/PieFed comm is enough.
- infographics and whatnot showing why we oppose ads, alternatives on individual and social scales, and addressing a bunch of “ackshyually” weasel words that are bound to pop up.
- ways to let people know that space exists. Yes, I know it sounds hypocritical, but basically advertising an anti-advertisement community.
- ways to multiply that space, outside the boundaries of the Fediverse. As in, to gather support for the cause without centralising everything here.
pipe bombs, masks against pepper spray, Molotov cocktails.
This is a good idea, there’s an anti bulldog community, there’s a fuck cars community, maybe make a community?
Ok. Now I’m wondering about a good instance for that. Perhaps lemmy.zip, given its focus on tech and PCs? Although I picture this would fit dbzer0 really well, too.
dbzer0 is a good one for it. I could try to make one.
Great. Now it’s about finding
- a name. “fuck advertisement”? “Fuck ads”? “Enough ads”? “Fuck the ad industry and all the rest of the capitalistic garbage feeling entitled to our time”? “My eyeballs are not for sale”?
- mods. Pinging @Quexotic@sh.itjust.works and @cm0002@suppo.fi as either might be interested. Plus you (if you want) and me.
- rules. I think “be a decent person”, “no advertisement apologia”, “no divisive off-topic” is a good start.
I am the filthiest fucking fuckmouth you’ll ever fucking meet, but I’d suggest avoiding “fuck” in the name. It’s like a fucking wall or a locked fucking door, that keeps too many folks away or fucking tells them not to take the fucking idea seriously.
Fair.
To be honest I’m still cooking the idea of the community, but when I create it, I’m taking the input of all you guys into account. (And probably pinging whoever might be interested on moderating it.)
I vote fuck ads.
It’s a little bit derivative but there’s a fuck trucks fuck bulldogs I think, fuck AI and like I mentioned before fuck cars. It might actually make it a lot easier to remember.
I thought about “EyesNotForSale”. But I guess you’re right, making it “fuck
$noun” is easier for people to find and remember.EyeAmNotForSale
Well, I can’t remember the last time saw one, so I’d say it’s doing just fine.
I guarantee there is one within the room you’re in while reading this. From my desk, I can see 9 ads. I’m counting brand logos as advertisements, because they are.
Branding and ads are distinctly different. I’ll have to disagree with you on that.
After you start it, trying to get the word out kinda butts heads with the objective, no?




