What Is My Label? 1

Do I need to mention that I have nothing to do with any of the advertisers down below? Probably not. And perhaps you’ve developed a salutary ability to ignore the ads, aided by their omnipresence.

    By the way, I don’t get off free when I look at my own blog. I get this:

That is, I get an advertisement for WordPress’s paid plans.

    Should I believe “Occasionally, some of your visitors may see an advertisement here,” or the word at the top of that box, “Advertisements”? For all I know, you see more advertising than blogging. And “You can hide ads completely by upgrading to one of our paid plans”: is there a half-hearted plan that incompletely gets rid of the advertising?

    What if you had a blog that stuck to the theme of the evils of advertising? Somebody’s good money would go toward trying to combat that environment so as to get their message across.

    Some ads are keyed to topics on the page. What if I spent most of my space arguing against “prosperity theology”? I could do that easily and enjoyably. My use of the terms necessary to that task would no doubt attract advertisements from preachers and churches adhering to that theology. Such a thing did occur when I had a site (courtesy of Yahoo, I think it was) that used Google ads: I said something about weapons of warfare, and, sho nuff, that attracted an ad from somebody ostensibly selling some interesting weapons, and an ad for recruitment into some branch of the U.S. military. I’d better not say what I think about a certain substance that was illegal across the U.S. not long ago but now can be obtained and used recreationally by law-abiding citizens in the state I live in. Or if I mention my gender and age, you’ll see advertisements for blue pills or enhancers or mail-order brides. In this way my blog becomes similar to every televised sports event in having an irrelevant brand name added to its own name — in effect, “On Being Disciples of Jesus, presented by the U.S. Marines” or “The Church of Gettin’ That Cadillac You Want blog on being disciples of Jesus.”

    If you read this page, please let me know in the comments box what you see advertised below the post.

• “prosperity theology”: in quotes because it is neither.
• And there are, of course, “targeted ads,” which respond to what the viewer has viewed. If, for instance, you buy a toilet on-line (it can be done), you’ll see toilet ads for a couple weeks or more after you’ve made the purchase and are no longer interested.