Ads, Please Go Away! (And while we're at it, social media, please play nice)

So recently one of the prompts from Mama Kat was this: "List 10 people, places, or things you’d like to give a timeout to." I thought of only one, then when I came to write this blog, I thought of two.

1) Commercials. I am sick to death of commercials. Can they please take a time out? I'd like to go at least one day without encountering companies trying to get me or my children to buy (or in case of my oldest daughter, ask for) their products. Don't get me wrong. Commercials and ads have their place. How else are we going to learn about new products? But it seems way overdone these days. Here's a list of all the places I could think of where I see ads: TV, movie theaters, DVDs, magazines, books, e-mail, internet (pretty much every site), sports games, billboards, buses, decorated cars, mail, apps, social media, clothing, names of sports arenas, signs at intersections, radio...And those are just the ones I thought of off the top of my head. I'm sure there are more.

I don't hate capitalism. I get the positives of such a system. But it also seems that if an alien were just to observe our culture the number one thing he would conclude we are about is stuff. We're about making stuff, buying stuff and owning stuff. Sometimes we even sell our own stuff when we have too much stuff. And then a lot of us go into debt for more stuff. If you've ever seen Veggie Tales' Madame Blueberry, Stuff Mart is quite accurate (see scene here). Think about the rows and rows of the same stuff we have in our marts. We have so many choices, it's actually pretty ridiculous when you think of it.

To get more serious, it's really sad how much we are drowning in stuff when people in our world are dying because they don't have even basic necessities. I know it's cliche to say it, but it's downright true. And I can't help but wonder if something is wrong with a culture that spends more on stuff than on people in need.

And the desire for stuff is even more detrimental in that it can drown out truth and freedom. I read a book recently that mentioned how China is unique because it has a lot of economic freedom even when it has strict laws restricting freedom in other areas. The author surmised this was because if you make sure people have access to a lot of stuff they won't pay so much attention to a lack of freedom in other ways. Stuff excites a pleasure center when bought and owned and it can dull a sense of what is really important. What are we missing simply because we have let stuff blind us to it?

I'd like to go one day without seeing an ad just to see what it would be like to be free from something pressuring me to get more stuff. Just to be free to be content without the temptation and the push of an ad.

2) It hit me as I went to write this blog that the second time out I would like to give is to social media. Not all of it, just the outraged, judgmental part. It absolutely horrifies me how judgmental and nasty lots of people are on social media. Don't get me wrong here, either. There are some things in our society that deserve horrified anger. Genocide comes to mind. It's wrong and we should stand against it. But I'm thinking of people whose lives have been ruined by others on social media who have made it their day's work to destroy them. Maybe someone used an inappropriate word or wrote an ill thought out tweet or was caught on camera the day they made a mistake. I imagine much of social media as people sharpening their talons and drooling on their computers waiting to eviscerate those with the unfortunate happenstance to fail publicly.

What's even worse is when the people who have failed apologize because that never solves it. Oh no. We don't let people off the hook that easily here. Your apology means nothing. I want to see your face rubbed in the dirt. I want my sense of justice and I can give it to you by causing such a stink that you end up jobless and homeless and your spouse and kids suffering. My goodness! What has happened to this country?

I guess it's just sin, the sin of liking to watch someone's downfall. How sad that we delight in watching people sin and get ground under. I am so glad my God doesn't. If he did, he never would have sent his son to die.

(If you are one who is gracious and merciful, I salute you. It's hard to be so these days in the face of vicious anger).

(For more on a Christian response to these situations, check out my other blog's post here).