Sunday, November 10, 2013

Pesky Online Advertisements Scroll, Spread and Stay

They are everywhere, those pesky ads that move where you move, when you move, and wait when you wait. This is the new breed of ads. Lately, ads have taken to planting themselves on top of the very paragraph one is trying to read and uncannily the pest lies in wait till you are ready to move. Sounds sinister but that's how ads are these days. Moving Ads are my shadows and make T.S. Eliot proud, "Between the Idea and the Reality, Between the Motion and the Act, Falls the Shadow; Between the Conception and the Creation, Between the Emotion and the Response, Falls the Shadow; Between the Desire and the Spasm, Between the Potency and the Existence, Between the Essence and the Descent, Falls the Shadow". And TS Eliot did not even live in a digital age!

I wouldn't mind if Ads just lay there quietly on the side or on the bottom or even on top of the page; what is disturbing is how they cover the entire page or parts of the page. They do not move till they are forcefully shoved out of the way. From what I see in myself, I usually do it with the biggest, loudest curse word and a slamming down on the x button (if I can find it). These days their creators have developed the art of camouflage to a perfection where it's impossible to find the close button and by the time you find it, your attention span has frittered away into oblivion. This is indeed the new breed. Slightly older than these are Ads that still trick people but at least they let them have options of finding the x button either on top right or top left or bottom left or bottom right! It is all the same story of sending hapless individuals into circles or squares!

I don't see how we can get out of this dilemma. This is a reality that has been added to our already messed up reality. We can go the Indian way of treating everything as Maya, an illusion but nonetheless a reality as well. Maybe scrolling-ads-creators can be rounded up or quarantined indefinitely. As everything is so politically liberal minded, a compromise could be worked out that didn't 'hurt' the sensibilities of Ads and their creators, although historically, compromises have never worked in the liberal world. It's all or nothing. But, I wish I could see through Ads that are sitting on top of what I am trying to read. At least that will allow me to do what I to do and simultaneously ignore stubborn ads that will not go away. Currently, they seem to be made from the same stuff politicians are made, they are dense, shameless, pathological liars! Sigh, if only Ads were transparent!



5 comments:

  1. How true....devious ads.

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  2. The ads on some pages are just ridiculous. You can't even get to the comment box on some sites because the ads are covering them up.

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  3. How true ... those devious Ads.

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  4. Oh man, I hate those things! Another bad one is the hidden video: an ad that hides somewhere on a page, and begins with loud audio after a short while. You may have even opened another window, so you start looking all over all the pages, and can't seem to find it anywhere! That's what I have right now, and it's driving me insane!

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    1. Lol, yes those are terrible. But Kris if you have trouble locating those things, can you imagine us, the ones who are technologically impaired!

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