Ads, People, and People that Are Ads, here on Voat ( conspiracy )

submitted by SaneGoatiSwear

i'm noticing more and more people are unwittingly advertising products/services/brands, and when they are, those people aren't really discussing a subject so much as they are advertising the product and modeling what they say not specifically about the product to fit the motif of their talk about the product. i've now actually talked directly to one, and it was like talking to a brick wall with an ad on it... the human being - well at least i hope it was a human being - - it purported to be one anyway - - had no idea, even when i directly confronted it and tried to explain, that it's an ad at the moment - not a person - but it wouldn't understand nor listen. it was eerie, like trying to talk to the girl in the most recent south park episodes, but a very poor beta version that really can't hold a conversation.

be careful voatspiracists; the ads are among us.

discuss your experiences with "human" ads and the idea that this a conspiracy of the highest order to usher in the next phase of advertising and social manipulation.

edit: clarification concept: when you tell your friends about a product/service (eg: duckduckgo) are you just telling your friend use this to be safe or are you an ad or both? i'm seeing more "adpersontizing" happening in voat, and i'm bringing it up as a possible conspiracy. the advertisers are here and we're being used as a test bed for a new-ish form of dirty advertising.

edit 2: this is an ongoing thing i'm seeing, not some established well evidenced conspiracy. just keep your eyes open and watch out :)

final edit: i'm out for a while, but i've learned i need to explain things more succinctly, even in text. imagine, i speak in greater volume irl, so, well, it's an ongoing battle. stay aware!

Sullysq

This is old hat. It's just better tech now.

The porn sites pioneered this kind of chat-bot back in the days of AOL and Yahoo chat rooms. The bot would seem normal till you went off script. They were always trying to get you to go to a pay porn site to see their pics or watch their webcam.

Now it's the same thing on a broader scale with more complex interactions and responses. And yes, they are here on voat.

They started arriving here about 20 days ago and the majority of them within the last week. Only a few of them are engaging in comments so far but I expect that will increase soon as the simpler posting bots are more easily recognized and downvoated by their lack of comments. So far they seem to almost entirely be coming from China. Probably farming accounts to be posed as "real" users when they ratchet up the ad content. Cause other users see an ad, check the user and downvoat the bots. But an older account with lots of SCP and CCP people will listen to or at least let it be when it posts ads.

I would encourage you all to downvoat any botlike behavior you see to prevent these things from infesting the site.

brokenmoon

I don't agree with your assertion, but I love the depth of your skepticism.

FatPepe

Have ya'll heard about Edward Bernays? He was Frued's nephew & pretty much the founder of modern advertising. Apologies if this is basic & you're already informed but for those who aren't, check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIRJ-Xi9JXY

He successfully identifies the subconscious reason as to why women weren't buying instant cake mix & as a result sales skyrocket. My point is that this was in the 50's at the start of the modern advertising strategy, so whatever mad shit you think is going down in the world of marketing, likely is. Voat is an interesting sort of isolated environment to test ads on people with an anti-establishment nature, so why wouldn't they be trying this if there's no downside to them doing so.

pitenius

Also, evil downvotin' ghosts.

I wonder about this a lot. I can see not getting upvoats: no one cares. But 80% of the downvoats I see are a mystery. They're grudges or scripted. Why'd you get downvoated? Who knows?

I respect people more for hateful comments than downvoats.

kittenpoo

I've only seen one such post on voat and I really don't think voat is the place they want to test this stuff when facebook and twitter have it down to an artform. Social media is already the social manipulation. Social media marketers with their incessant hashtaggery have made it seem normal for every special snowflake to tell the world what they think about their favourite brands, because people give a shit? Nope because it's letting the plebs do the work for them, they spoon feed them their message and all the obedient little birdies go and regurgitate all over eachother.

SaneGoatiSwear

right. and i'm seeing it bleed into voat.

well if i'm wrong, then good :)

keep a watchful eye

Pawn

They can try their best but I'm refusing to buy anything that I don't thoroughly investigate first.

farmer-

Ads?? on Voat?! By HUMANS??? OP you are crazy! None of us hip youth would listen to you! top kek, funny meme. I'm hungry, so I'm going to go for a delicious snickers candy bar! you're not you when you're hungry!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqbomTIWCZ8

un_salamandre

Do you mean you've discovered "Word of Mouth"?

Amateur_Wizard

I'm a walking billboard for anything I truly believe in.

Why would I want my friends and family using a product/service I find inferior....

it's called word of mouth

fr33europe

My wife gets pissed when I put stickers on our truck. Whatever, if the product is good, it's good.

toobaditworks

Yeah but advertising magnum ribbed condoms that glow in the dark is a bit embarrassing when picking up the kids.

fr33europe

Who's side are you on anyway??

Heebie_Kikeburger

When I get worried about the amount of ads forced on us daily, I light up a LUCKY STRIKE and all my worries waft away with that delicious LUCKY STRIKE smoke!

Aboresh

Since I've basically dropped out of popular culture to more seriously pursue my occult studies, I've noticed it quite a lot in my coworkers and extended groups of acquaintances. They identify with and cling to these brands as a sort of tribal identity. The thing is, they don't even seem to realize or know that this has happened to them, the memeplexes that make up modern advertising has infected so many people that they don't even see what's happening to them or that they're spouting out stuff about products.

Advertisers/marketing people are evil and know that the techniques they use infect people, but they don't have any idea of the underlying shit that they're dealing with(i.e. sigilization, egregores, tulpas, ect) and have unleashed a monster onto the world. It's not the religious nutters or the bankers that will destroy the world, it'll be the marketers with the mewling, half mad thought forms that they've created and infected the population with.

pitenius

Since I've basically dropped out of popular culture to more seriously pursue my occult studies...

Hats off to you, sir.

SaneGoatiSwear

you ought have posted this, not me. holy shit yes this so the fucking hell much this.

Aboresh

That's the weird thing about being on the fringe of what is acceptable to the majority of society, you see the cracks.

I actually encourage everyone to read up on this sort of thing so that they can defend themselves and make actual choices when it comes to stuff and not just be influenced by some dumbass marketers.

Umrtvovacz

It was obviously downvoted by the Ad People.

Xenomorphine

Those pesky Ad People, they're everywhere, they're among us! looks around suspiciously

Xenomorphine

shrugs No idea, maybe it was someone who really likes ads xD

TheDude2

As I sit here drinking my starbucks while using my mac I can't help to think this is bullshit.

twentyfive

i prefer Costcos Kirkland signature supremo bean coffee to, its cheaper than that other place.

twentyfive

not in jest a great product is worth taking about, being shoveled crap advertisements is a sin

twentyfive

its flat out admitted that this form of advertisement exists, its all about getting a thought in your head. tech only makes it easier

next when you go shop for shampoo, they'll have a advertisement for lotion on the same bottle... wait thats a coupon

fr33europe

I want coffee too. Mmmmm free work coffee, the best kind.

I work at an ad agency, I'll be sending this thread to the higher ups.

(Subtle red pill sending voat.co links to the community team, I wonder how far down the rabbit hole they click before getting scared)

SaneGoatiSwear

you're saying... it goes both ways!?!

and also

what have i done..??

fr33europe

Tell us more about how you hate advertising

SaneGoatiSwear

NEVARR hrragrrarrrrr.....

fr33europe

Just so you feel better I gave my notice last week, and any IP records of the shit I post on voat tracks back to very left wing blue pilled ad agency

Can't wait to get the fuck out of here

Drenki

The worst thing I see are people promoting their YouTube channel or game. And those are usually posts, not comment spam or anything.

Amateur_Wizard

OHHHH LIKE THAT

Ok now i get the ad thing, my previous comment was all...

"this motherfucker hasn't heard of word of mouth before?"

but yeah, having a discussion about cats, and then someone interjects with something completely off topic and a plug for a good or a service isn't good.

Drenki

Sorry man, I don't understand what you're trying to say here.

Every link on Voat is a tacit advertisement for something. But there's a difference between posting a single link to a thing you want to share and posting that same link into 20 different threads.

pitenius

it's something that's been creeping into peoples' speech and text for years and years

Most common among Californians, in my experience. They wear Levi's, not pants, etc. It's gotten so bad that I often don't know the shit they're talking about: "She said my new Fossil looked like crap" "Sorry, man. Was it a cool one, like a trilobite or crinoid?" blank stare

Drenki

You're saying that people discuss things that can be bought or might be the product of a company like a news site? And that's a conspiracy?

Or you're saying that people ought to use generic terms in their examples or something so instead of /v/AmazonDailyDeals they ought to write /v/MegaOnlineRetailerDailyDeals ?

Your description is really vague and you haven't given anyone any exmaples.

Drenki

I can read the front page just fine. But you have utterly failed to describe what I'm supposed to look for. Stop posting when you're stoned.

Xenomorphine

Never encountered such a strange phenomena myself but if I do, I'll block the sob on the spot.. I just hate ads in all forms, and human form is no exception, lol.

Drenki

It wasn't me, but to my knowledge there's no way to block people on Voat yet. The button doesn't work.

Drenki

Stop mentioning V**t dipshit shill.