The Inundation of Marketing and the Cost of Constant Influence
Marketing is Breaking Us
We are drowning in marketing — and no one’s coming to save us.
Whether you're scrolling through social media, trying to text someone, or simply buckling your seatbelt on a flight, you are being sold to. Constantly. Relentlessly. And it’s exhausting. We have reached a marketing tipping point.
The New Noise: 10,000+ Ads a Day
The average person now encounters over 10,000 advertisements a day. In the time of our youth (I’m looking at you, fellow Gen X), it was closer to 500, and only if you left the house. Now, it’s a constant stream: email spam, sponsored content, dynamic pricing pop-ups, influencer “relatability,” and the kind of digital manipulation that would’ve made Orwell blush.
Marketing Has Become Manipulation
Every ad today is a Trojan Horse. Pharma commercials distract you with dancing grandmas while they quietly mention a dozen side effects. Beyond Brew offers you six different upsells for a coffee. Red Bull Arena asks for tips — on self-serve stations.
Airlines now show feel-good safety videos where passengers are frolicking in meadows, half-naked and happy, with five feet of personal space. Meanwhile, you’re stuck in 17B next to someone’s elbow. That’s not entertainment — it’s psychological warfare. Delta, United… they’re all doing it. And don’t get me started on the $7 airport water.
But I’ve noticed a pattern. I’ve come to believe that something is hiding behind every bit of heavy marketing. “No trans fats” probably means it’s full of something worse. And fun fact: “All Natural” carries no legal definition or significance with the FDA or otherwise outside of fancy fonts.
The goal isn’t to help. It’s to extract.
The Tipping Point — Literally
Tipping used to mean showing appreciation. Now it’s corporate outsourcing their labor costs onto you. And it’s not just restaurants anymore. It's digital checkout pages, donation platforms, and vending machines asking for 25–30% “tips”—sometimes automatically checked.
This isn’t generosity. It’s guilt-ware.
Worse, it’s being packaged as virtue while bypassing real issues like living wages and economic inequality. It’s “choice architecture” — but the only choices are:
Pay more,
Feel bad,
Or look like a jerk.
Technofeudalism and the Illusion of Choice
We don’t have a free market — we have a forced market. Everything’s upsold. Everything’s manipulated. Prices change by the second thanks to AI and demand tracking. Two people on the same plane or at the same concert pay wildly different prices for the same experience.
That’s not efficiency. That’s exploitation. And it’s being masked with slogans and hashtags.
What Can You Do? Opt Out. Consciously.
This episode isn’t just a rant — it’s a reassessment.
I’m not trying to tear it all down. I’m trying to remind you that you still have control over what you consume.
Here’s how I handle it:
I don’t pay for cable.
I barely use social media, except to post — and I admit, that’s marketing too.
I tip well at restaurants — but only there, and always in cash.
I walk in the woods. I look for quiet. I buy less. And I like free things.
You don’t have to play the game. At least not all the time.
Your Attention Is the Product — Protect It
The reality is this: there are teams of people working 12-hour days trying to figure out how to get you to click, tip, buy, and scroll. It’s their full-time job. And if you don’t become deliberate with your time and money, you’ll be living someone else’s strategy.
This isn’t about minimalism or anti-capitalism. It’s about mental wellness in a world designed to distract you from it.
And it starts by choosing to say no.
