Monetary Transactions Are My New Best Friend: A Warning Against The Friendly Language of Targeted Advertising

by: Mya Tozzi

We work, we watch, we listen. As our generation grows more isolated in our labor, we have less and less time to foster conversation. For some, it simply doesn’t fit in the workday. Between jobs, school, and the constant push for self-improvement (the new hottest trend convincing the working class that all it needs to save itself is to achieve some kind of “inner healing”, which also conveniently costs money), who has time to sit and chat? Well, brands do. On every subway platform, every flyer, every surface, brands create an ongoing dialogue with us. This conversation builds, even when we don’t talk back. And at the end of the day, we take it home with us. There is no way to clear our devices of advertisements; our algorithms have earned our trust because they speak our language. We work, we watch, and there is a non-zero chance that we buy. We live on the receiving end of constant attempts to break down the walls of our rationale. We are boxed into the position of a passive listener.

In the early days of content creation, people trusted well-known creators to give them honest opinions about products. The trade-off was that, through viewing the content, they were giving attention to a creator’s video, thus earning them revenue through views and shares. On YouTube, ads would play before these videos regardless of their content; it was symbiotic. We understood how creators got paid, through ad revenue and the occasional sponsorship. But sponsorships were overtly mentioned, and viewers got used to the cadence of an ad read. As creators shifted to short-form content however, our trust in them followed as their “ad reads” got more insidious and harder to sniff out. Now, every product shown on screen could potentially have a brand behind it, paying for it to be there. Suddenly, every lipstick worn by your favorite creator was their “favorite lipstick,” every protein powder was the one they “swore by.” And by the time viewers could potentially get wise, they’d scrolled away or added the product to their cart. How could we not be swayed by the sincerity of their language? How many videos does it take for us to trust that the protein powder is really next level? Five? Ten? Sure, we could always read reviews, but those are anonymous and we are supposed to know creators, we are supposed to trust them more than strangers. 

As short-form content became more mainstream in the early 2020’s, it became apparent that even creators with small platforms could skyrocket or completely ruin the image of a brand through a single video’s popularity. These creators were small enough that they had little to no brand loyalty, and we trusted them because of this. We assumed we could still tell the difference between an ad and a review. The unpolished editing, the low production quality, but most importantly the similarities between creators’ environments and our own. The problem was that brands saw this; could see the trust they’d created with their follower base, and took advantage of that. Now, the line between ad and earnest review is blurred. We’ve come to an era of the internet where everything is advertisement, and we have no time to discern, no way of wiping our algorithm clean. Interspersed between credited ads are all the sponsorships, promotions, free product reviews, and simple trend forecasts that eat up our wherewithal and chip away at our caution.

Why did this happen? Well, it’s cheap for a brand to pay a slew of small creators who have built niche followings and already have established personas. Traditional ad space is far more expensive. Audiences aren’t quick to realize that creators are aligning themselves with a brand’s agenda. We see them and almost expect honesty. When we hear from mothers, from teachers, from nurses, and college students, we see ourselves in them as workers. They talk to us the way we talk to our small circles. This makes them “down to earth,” a cadence they speak with, a life they have, that seems so similar to ours. Social media was, of course, designed to connect communities, and it is still marketed as such. We want to believe there are people like us on the other side of the screen. How could they lie or sell out? Why wouldn’t I trust a private chef to recommend HexClad cookware? Why wouldn’t I trust a friend to sell me everything?

Brands realized long ago that women are powerful consumers, controlling large amounts of certain markets. During the industrial revolution, the image of a woman’s role shifted. Consumer culture was growing, items which once had to be handmade were now rapidly being produced and sold to the mass market. Middle-class white women could now become buyers, and so they needed their own targeted advertisements. Enter the world of Good Housekeeping, a perfect example of a publication targeting women directly as managers of the home. Looking at an issue from 1906, the language is incredibly misogynistic, yet it pushes female readers to challenge the original image of the homemaker. At the time, wives putting pressure on husbands to control some aspects of spending was new and progressive, but the agenda of the businesses behind the magazine did not care about granting women more agency. It was only concerned with tapping into a new consumer base, and would use whatever language necessary to succeed. 

Every image shown in early issues of Good Housekeeping depict women surrounded by objects associated with the myopic, misogynistic picture of women at the time. A basket overflowing with children's toys, a dresser piled high with beauty products. And the articles were no different. For example, “A successful wife-planned cottage” argues that women are well suited to make decisions on the look of a home as well as the products inside it. From there, they could sell wallpaper and flower arrangements, furniture and dishware. Brands were laying the groundwork, trying to figure out how to encourage women to buy. And surprisingly, women writers contributed to these magazines almost as early as their inception. Advice columns and household tips, poetry and short stories, the goal of the magazine was to shift the perception of a housewife and they needed women writers in order to do that.

 I imagine a room of eight men in suits, trying to figure out how to create trust between brands and female consumers. Gossip, traditionally a secret language used by women for the purpose of community and safety, slowly leaked into advertising. Brands had to figure out how we talk to each other in order to sell to us. Ads from the early twentieth century often featured two women whispering about hygiene products, beauty products, or chatting on the phone about the “wonders” of the phone they were chatting on. Even with the knowledge that these scenes were scripted, the act of a private conversation between girls created trust with viewers. Now, watching a woman eat a burrito in her car on her lunch break, I can assume the other woman is supposed to be me. 

She talks to me as a friend, using language that suggests we’ve always known each other. “You know me...” as she mixes two salsas. “I have to buy Mexican food from a place with two salsas.” I nod. Of course she does. Who wouldn’t? “And when I order in the app...” she takes another bite. “I get points which allow me to get a free salsa next time!” I download the app. I have to try the free salsa hack. And then I’ve successfully been bought by an ad that cost a brand pennies to produce. It’s really a perfect storm. In an endless cycle of envy, we desire the life influencers have, and therefore we desire the items they own. How can they have all of our quirky flaws, our misgivings about the world, our shortcomings and resolutions, and yet gain all of this perceived success? We see ourselves in them, but we are obviously missing a few non-negotiables. The water bottle they carry, the Hobonichi notebook they plan their days in, the meditation app they swear by. 

To be online is to understand that someone is making money off of you. Most of us know this and find ourselves choosing to stay there. The truth is, we are isolated to the point where buying something off of the internet-recommendation of an influencer we trust feels almost identical to hearing of a product through a friend in real life. With our bullshit monitors operating at half-capacity, it all blends together. Everywhere we look, we are being told to buy and share, to recommend, to tell a friend. But they’re being told the same. Why play telephone when they probably get the same ads we do? Maybe we never thought about what it really means to influence, never really accepting that social media platforms meant to encourage and support community were really trying to advertise to us as much as possible. And who has the time to puzzle together signs that a creator is selling out? Parasociality feels one-sided, but creators also require something from us. Our engagement is the ticket to their wealth, and they are able to track us better than ever through our engagement data. 

I’m not arguing that we should all close our phones; that’s the obvious answer. But ads are everywhere, and they’ll find you regardless. They come home with you, they sleep in your bed. What I’m arguing that we do is reconstruct what we perceive as “community.” If it looks like a friend, talks like a friend, and lives in your phone, it might just be an ad. Feel the wave of the trend cycle becoming shorter and shorter. Count how many pairs of jeans you own. I have 12! Start asking questions of the people you follow: do they actually know what you want? Are they really “just like you?”Are they worthy of your time, your dime, or your trust?