Erm…
There’s not too much on my mind today outside of flopping around and listening to tunes – hooray! I am wondering slightly on why we’re so quick to take offense at things, but then, that’s everyone, and me included in that too. It’s like The Onion says – most problems could be fixed if we all just took a few seconds to take a deep breath and think before acting. *chuckles* I admit I find this difficult – I fixate… badly. Very badly. Like, make myself ill trying to ignore things level, which is why I opt to either stay in my hole, or fix whatever needs fixing. Neither option is particularly ideal, but there you go.
*wiggles fingers* Eee, my Winamp on random is being extra-kindly to me and playing favorites! //random
I guess that minds me of the other thing on my mind – Television. I’m not particularly a fan, as I find it difficult to follow the flashing lights and colors and often get lost and confused with the plot unless I stare directly without doing anything else. I’m twitchy, and don’t find this an enjoyable prospect in most cases. *chuckles* But I ‘need’ background noise to keep sane, and always have, and the drone of the idiot box fills that void while providing the husband fellow with his idea of relaxation.
So yes, I’ve gotten better at ignoring the obnoxious flashing and attention demanding from the corner of my eye, but I’d rather that we just cut back on it altogether for one salient reason – yon tiny one. While I don’t mind it babysitting us that much, I don’t want it babysitting her – she’s much too vibrant for me to want her to be a telezombie. I don’t like the look of most children’s programming, and I certainly don’t like the large range of ‘BUY ME NOW!’ products that comes attached to them. My choice of ‘My mother is awful’ therapy that she’ll have to go through will be the infliction of cartoons from the 70s and 80s – sure, she can have kid’s programming, but hay – pre-vetted, and likely not as tied up with as much damned merchandising. Maybe my opinion will change on that once she’s old enough to ask for things, but I sincerely doubt it – if she wants name brand character crap, she can spend her own money on it.
Oooh, which leads me to a sub-rant – walking logos! Seriously, why does anyone want to be a walking advertisement? I cannot see the appeal of saying to the world that you are a walking sandwich board for Brand X or Brand Y, and that obviously that is the only true path to happiness. By that same token, I will be doing my damned to avoid my child being a walking advert for toys and cartoons; we resent and refute your assertions that we must fit into your nice consumer-tastic statistics. Sure, we still need to buy things to get by, and sure, I admit to being influenced by advertising – the an advert makes me genuinely laugh (not the ‘you are on crack’ laughing), I will consider buying the product (see Juan Sheet), but if it tries to prey on my insecurities, I’ll avoid buying products by that brand completely (I’m looking at you, Scholls – I refuse to be vain enough to worry about people staring at my heels. And, of course, any ‘beauty’ product).
So erm… la! *laughs*
<3
[[radio edit]] The husband points out the tiny one has Star Wars and Mr. Men shirts. I argue that’s totally different. <__< ‘Sides, all babies need a little Darth Vader in their lives, right? Right! 😀
I’m sitting at Centre Parcs right now and we have CBBC on the television, mainly as background noise here too. Four hours of programmes and not a single one has been trying to sell anything. We’ve watched Horrible Histories, Sean the Sheep, a drama about Leonardo da Vinci called Leonardo, Tracy Beaker and Blue Peter. Whilst these are all older children things (amusing Poki’s 12 year old, who’s simultaneously doing Sudoku and a jigsaw puzzle, so not fixed on the goggle box), you might want to check out CBeebies, which is programming that the BBC do for that age group. Merchandising is certainly available for some of it, but it doesn’t PUSH the merchandise and there’s no paid advertising at all on the channel. They’re quite careful to commission programmes which actually offer something useful for children, be it moving around, as in Boogie Beebies, or learning about gardening with the Eco Beebies. Whilst I TOTALLY take your point about not babysitting with the television, there is good stuff available for little ones, that won’t stop her being her vibrant self and could actually enhance her experiences.
And actually, our childhood wasn’t free of advertising and merchandising either. Going right the way back to the 60s, you could get Thunderbirds models, moving forward, I remember the Wombles having merchandise in the shops, He-Man action figurines, the abominable Care Bears and I was completely in love with my RideOn Dougal from Magic Roundabout when I was only a little older than your little one. So much so that he had to be prised from me when his foam wore out and the dangerous frame was exposed and I didn’t speak to my father for weeks after he went on the bonfire. I was around 10 at the time <.< But equally, I've already indicated that I was equally fond of my homemade truck, rocking horse and building blocks, so I don't think that I was unduly affected by advertising at that age.
I totally agree about the logo thing, it confuses me too – do people not realise that the 'trendsetters' are actually paid by sponsorship to wear such things, rather than being relieved of excessive amounts of money to display the same? I tolerate a small amount on sportswear, because it's pretty difficult to actually get good sportswear that doesn't have a logo somewhere on it. Otherwise, I'm not sure that I have any clothing with branding on the outside.
CBBCs turned me off with their advertisement showing ‘cooperation’ as ‘fooling/distracting your parents to get away with shit’ – not.freaking.cool! Though I do intend to vet the shows at some point in the future, if only if to see if there’s something that is entertaining without being condescending – I also take issue with so-called ‘educational’ shows, if only for all the people in my acquaintanceship who are shoving their under-3s in front of such instead of… oh… reading with their kid.
And yeah, I realized some of the shows I liked as a kid were nothing but advertisements… years after they were relevant. Thinking back recently, I think I can count on one hand the number of times I got taken into toy shops as a kid, so that would probably also explain why I didn’t get toyed to death, per se. Heck, the last time I remember going into a toy store, it was to buy a video game with my hard-earned money… only to find someone had stolen it//had fallen out of my pocket//etc.
And on the last point… yup. *chuckles* Nothing wrong with enjoying a quality product, and in things such as that, you want something quality!