A friend of mine just made this observation:

My children will never know a world without advertising in the bathroom stalls. What is a ridiculous concept deserving of scorn to us will be just more noise they have always known. And it will be no big deal when the next intrusive, ludicrous advertising concept comes along.

I laughed out loud, but she's right: it's also kind of sad.

(Unless the Talking Heads get their way, that is.)

A few years ago, Missouri had a public referendum on whether to curtail the number of billboards: it wasn't going to be cut to zero, just limited to all existing signage.

A drive to Branson (juxaposed with a memory of the same drive several decades ago) provides a powerful argument in favor: where there was once scenery, you'd now swear that area of Southern Missouri had no natural beauty. And I've driven through other states which had such laws, and really enjoyed seeing the... ummm...

What are those things again?

Trees! Yes, right trees. I really enjoyed seeing the trees.

Of course, there were the endless dire-sounding counter-arguments: Tourism! Unemployment! Tourism! Wealth! (And did we mention Tourism?) Repeat ad nauseum each night on TV for months on end.

So the proprosed restrictions died. And now no drive through Missouri is complete without an endless barrage of crass signs for sex shops and casinos. (Intended, no doubt, to draw families closer by provoking numerous uncomfortable discussions and euphemistic explanations.)

What do the laws of supply and demand tell us?

For one, the more plentiful something is, the less valuable it is. So the irony is that the more advertising we have, the more companies must push to advertise on whatever space/bandwidth remains, just to get noticed.

Have we covered our children's clothing with ads yet? How about the bus seats and benches? Cars? Your computer's desktop? Have we rented out our very flesh yet?

When I was a kid, there were, what, ten minutes of ads per hour? Less? Now there's only something like 40 minutes of programming per hour: and frequently even that contains disguised advertisments.

The irony is that the more our lives become crowded with ads, the less value it has to each advertiser. They more they advertise, the more they must advertise -- and the more we learn tune them out. As my friend pointed out, this leads to desensitization and an advertising "arms race" to see who can outshock their competition.

Just a month ago, I was driving north on I-170 in St. Louis and noticed a billboard trumpeting a proclivity for a certain sexual position in order to advertise (let me put it tactfully) the importance of having a stylish dog. (Whatever happened to "puppy love"?)

So, what's the solution?

I'm generally not in favor of government regulations. But we live in an age where it's normal to tell people NOT to put rotting cars on their front laws, and to be able to restrict the size of signs in most areas: so I don't see that restricting ads on public airwaves, or billboards, would necessarily be any more intrusive.

Sadly, in an age where nobody wants to be seen as a "prude", I don't think there's anything which can be done. Perhaps people will come to their senses and there will be a backlash against the increasing courseness of public advertising. But my studies of history suggest people can sink pretty low.

So I guess we'll have to continue to live with it.

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