And not potato chips either but computer chips. To control their thoughts and stuff.
WASHINGTON - Madison Ave. ad execs are so bent on taking control of America's children, they'd put computer chips in kids' brains if they could, Sen. Hillary Clinton said yesterday.Saying advertisers have found so many new ways to get at kids through video games and the Internet, Clinton warned that we're verging on a society out of a grim science fiction novel.
"At the rate that technology is advancing, people will be implanting chips in our children to advertise directly into their brains and tell them what kind of products to buy," Clinton said at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
The New York Democrat said the country was performing a "massive experiment" on kids who average more than six hours a day with media and advertising, soaking it up through TV, computers, games and iPods. She said the fastest growing advertising market is the 6- and under set, and that children's health is already being hurt by products like Camel's candy-flavored cigarettes and junk food sold with tips for video games - used to sell more junk food.
"People are spending billions and billions of dollars enticing children basically to be obsessed with food," she said. "These foods are almost universally unhealthy." Clinton has offered legislation to study the effects of the "advertising-saturated, media-intense" world on kids.
A Syracuse professor accuses Hillary of taking the easy way out. Because, you know, accusing ad executives of wanting to control our children with computer chips in their brains is easier than, say, banning french fries.
Robert Thompson, a professor of pop culture at Syracuse University, said Clinton and other politicians like to attack advertising because it's easier than trying to ban bad food products or fund broad education programs."To go after advertising really makes no sense," he said. "It's sort of a backdoor tack, but it's the safer one politically."
How about this theory: Everyone wants to blame obesity on hypnotic advertising or unhealthy foods that just taste too good to avoid because it's safer politically to blame those things than to blame the parents who let their kids sit in front of the television/video game/computer for six hours a day eating pizza.
Or the fatty who eats two out of three meals every day at Burger King.
Nobody likes to hear that their problems are their own fault. Everyone wants to think that there's somone or something to blame other than themselves. Thankfully we have rank political panderers like Hillary Clinton around to tell us all that our big fat asses (and the big fat asses of our children) aren't our fault, a move that no doubt pleases the trial lawyers who are salivating at the idea of tobacco-style lawsuits against McDonald's and Madison Avenue advertising forms.
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Comments: 7
It is so easy to blame Madison Ave, TV or game manufacturers isn't it?
When the real 'bad guys' are the lazy, stupid and self-centered parents that stick their offspring in front of the boob tube from birth instead of reading to them, talking to them or just playing with them.
Bad parenting is an epidemic.
These days parents just take the easy way out. The kids and therefore society are the ones that suffer.
I don't want to hear about all the two income working parents either. Are not your children more important than that second income that only pays for childcare, cable TV and the SUV 2nd car payment? Do without...what your children need is YOU.
While Hillary has her faults and I suppose after sitting for six years on the Wal-Mart Board of Directors, she should be one of the last people to complain about retailing; none the less, she is speaking as an individual, not proposing legislation (let's hope).
Madison Avenue DOES market to kids and it is extremely difficult for parents to navigate around that marketing.
For instance, when my oldest daughter was born, we got rid of the television. My children grew up without the constant direct exposure to Madison Avenue, yet as they aged they picked up the influence from their peers. While we never caved in to their caterwauling desires, we still were forced to push through the constant pressure, knowing full well that as our domain of influenced decreased, the marketing power increased.
Any good child psychologist will tell you that as children age; the influence of their peers becomes greater than that of parents.
The power of parenting is like a rudder on a ship, when the waves are calm and the winds are low, you have control. However when the winds and waves become strong, your ability to steer is reduced from all points on the compass to but a single point, directly into the wind and waves.
I do not think it out of line for a leader to lead, to make social comments about society and forces that act on parents.
That is utterly appropriate and should is applauded.
I just find it silly that someone who has been so 'inappropriate' over the years as Hillary has...well she should have practiced what she preaches.
Then again...Chelsea seems pretty darn level headed so I could just be being very unfair.
what YOU aren't taking into account in your case is that YOUR kids may have picked things up from peer pressure, but they did NOT have the mind-numbing constant barrage that most do..
As they age you WILL see a difference, it's called learning to think for themselves.
Good job, Dad.
I am not very much bothered by that. They are adults and they posses discipline and good minds which help them navigate through the rocks of young adulthood.
The problem I have is with pre-teens and young teens who enter a fog of peer culture and peer influences much of which is market driven. We even had lexicon for this influence, we call it being "hip", "cool", "poplar" and "representing".
While parents must do everything they can do, it is necessary for the culture to realize its role and not shuck off its responsibilities by blame shifting to parents.
Long Live King George.