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thesis: advertising is a window into the political and aesthetic desires of a culture so here's a collection of advertising I found in old issues of the village voice. 1955   american culture had been bathed in abstract expressionism for a while now, but minimalism hadn't really been born. advertising is pretty minimalistic, lots of boxes with a little copy and what images they are usually are simple line drawings or cartoons.  i suppose that the cost of hiring someone to make an advertisement contributes to this minimalism as well. would take a lot broader of a survey to say one way or t'other. renting the space in the village voice appears to be dirt cheap. this is from the 2nd issue. i don't know what their distribution was exactly at the time but wikipedia tells me it started out of an apartment.  the editors were not above advertising tier own work (its ok critics being proven wrong by history, i don't like norman mailer either)  there's some cultural tension about the role of women, but i'd predict we aren't going to see a lot of the anxieties about women participating in capitalism boil over into advertising until the 60s.   from an aggregate of the more "with it" (as opposed to butcher shops saying CHEAP MEAT) advertisements it seems to me that its commercial audience was a weird mix of bohemian artists and the super super rich (sometimes the same people).  haircut watch.  cultural stereotypes are going to play a big role in advertising for a long time to come i don't really have commentary for the rest of these but i thought they were amusing or striking in some way    you are encouraged to post about advertisement or post advertising itt. google has a lot of old newspapers archived now. im getting this from https://news.google.com/newspapers
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Jun 22, 2016 05:54
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Al! posted:thesis: advertising is a window into the political and aesthetic desires of a culture so here's a collection of advertising I found in old issues of the village voice. I really like old advertisements, they are a window into the recent past that shows how a society(or at least a subset of it) was thinking at the time. I'll see if I can dig up something from my books.
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Jun 22, 2016 06:01
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 1956  Oooh-La-La!  Polio still a pretty big deal.     there's a kind of earnestness to the copy in these that i find really interesting. a conviction that if they just explain themselves and their aims honestly, that customers will flock to them.  holy moly!!!!!!!!!!!! wow! racist!!!!  (non-political chicken)  ice advertised in the newspaper??? without comment:   
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Jun 23, 2016 05:30
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i like this, this is cool reminds me of reading https://makersley.com, one of several day-by-day world war i as it happened 100 years ago blogs, but one which i really enjoy and have been saving up for binge reading since december because it covers the broad strokes but also uses a lot of diaries as source material as well as covering stuff like the armenian genocide or british police violence in the colonies that might not make a drier battles-and-generals coverage. it's written by a goon, but don't let that drive you away! BUT ANYWAY THE POINT IS that apparently the daily telegraph in britland has been doing a day-by-day online publishing of their entire newspaper, which this guy looks through to prepare each of his posts, and he will sometimes feature advertising for example this appears to be a high-ranking war official hawking pipe tobacco  in general he summarized it as way more tobacco and much less alcohol than we see now, and also apparently officers had to buy their own uniforms and people like burberry advertised very classy outfits to wear while you die of typhus in salonika or w/e also people got depressed back in the day, and their cure was patent medicine. there were lots of patent medicine ads  
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Jun 23, 2016 05:50
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this guy's like ALL I THINK ABOUT ALL DAY IS KILLING GERMANS!!!
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Jun 23, 2016 06:07
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oh poo poo i didnt even notice, that's lloyd george. it says it in the top right. he's famous for things reading it more closely i'm guessing they didn't even need authorization, they just had someone etch up a picture of the dude using their poo poo and said 'it is easy to imagine him smoking a pipe - possibly a pipe of our tobacco' thats funny to me
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Jun 23, 2016 06:10
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this capitalist hell planet
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Jun 23, 2016 18:46
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I choose life.
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Jun 23, 2016 22:14
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AHH gently caress!!!!!!!!! i lost 1957. gotta start over
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Jun 24, 2016 03:32
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 OH MY GOD!!! OH MY GOD!!! (barf) 1957 Vroom vroom, it's 1957 and it's time to get practical and loving DRIVE CARS.  i wonder what Marital Adjustment is, but it can't be good for the housewife   woah! pete seeger  still lots of that atomic age poo poo. does this art style have a proper name? Late art deco? lots of sunbursts and spangles and poo poo.  AHHHH poo poo!!!!! INFLATION!!!!!  i fuckin love these space shoe ads  awwww poo poo its motherfuckin burlap       cars CARS CAAAAAAARS  haircut watch  this is the first ad i've seen in the village voice i'd really think of as slick and modern. of course, slick modern advertising already existed by 1957 but it probably wouldn't have been wasted on a rag like this  does the two clowns sound like a threat to anyone else?  the best ham you guys 
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Jun 24, 2016 04:10
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 bonus: "gently caress vegetarians!" was already a stance in 1957
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Jun 24, 2016 04:12
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i think that anti-fremont political cartoon from the momentarily defunct elect-a-thon thread might've featured a vegetarian in its list of 'gently caress these weirdos' who fremont was promising the world to - you know, free love enthusiasts, blacks, suffragettes, and such also i love the dancing shoe one CRITICAL PARTY: no
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Jun 24, 2016 04:58
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GENUINE IMPORTED POLISH HAM GENUINE IMPORTED POLISH HAM GENUINE IMPORTED POLISH HAM GENUINE IMPORTED POLISH HAM GENUINE IMPORTED POLISH HAM GENUINE IMPORTED POLISH HAM GENUINE IMPORTED POLISH HAM GENUINE IMPORTED POLISH HAM
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Jun 24, 2016 05:00
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Jun 24, 2016 08:02
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There's a bit in the textbook I use to teach (college composition) that talks about restaurant menus. It has one for a divey college diner, with tons of options and utilitarian fonts with block letters to grab attention, and then there's a fancy restaurant with very few items and careful attention to font choice. It's a whole thing about rhetorical situations and to challenge students to speculate on the reasons that these restaurants would choose these sorts of menus. The textbook doesn't hand them the answers but we inevitably decide that the fancy restaurant isn't so much about getting cheap calories and having the specific food that you want but about having an "experience" where a chef has selected a few dishes that they believe they excel at. It's cultural capital where you feel "refined" knowing the obscure ingredients listed and so on. It's all ideological and I really enjoy my students having this lightbulb moment where they realize that something as mundane as a menu is rhetorical. With those ads, you also have to keep in mind the material limitations. Newspapers and periodicals trying to pack as much advertising revenue as possible into tiny rectangles results in minimalistic design. "The medium is the message" and all that. Still, that's part of the rhetorical situation of those ads. The formal limitations the advertiser works within. "Everything's an Argument" and "The World's a Text" are both really good (and accessible) books if folks are interested in reading more about these topics. This is a good thread topic.
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Jun 24, 2016 12:35
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 1958 Eisenhower is President! Khrushchev becomes Premier! Madonna is born! A time of incredible optimism and cold war terror. At least that's what your mom told me last night  This ad is amazing "well a distillery blew up next to us we're bomb proof motherfuckers"       baloogan's liver memorial booze post   i don't really know what "extra dividend days" means from a practical sense. but poo poo people seem to want them.  new technology: lovely coffee  yeah i'll PANHARD alright  not sure what this means but maybe first appearance of gay stuff? "cool about gay stuff early" is something that i think will def pop up later  just chillin  do you think they actually put these stupid loving crowns on kids heads?  first cigarette ad i remember seeing   fuckin weird cheese ad  art folks  in this summer issue there are a lot of congradulations? i don't understand it yet but i think it has something to do with something called the obies  imperialism  (guy who gets a vacation there) OH SHI OH gently caress OH NO NO NO  you on drugs kid? also l dig an ad that's just like USE ELCTRICITY  haircut watch  fugazy  more advertisements for basic utilities  dames yakkin too much? we feel you, but just think when they're talkin we're makin money and that's good for AMERICA! gently caress Communism!!!!
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Jun 25, 2016 04:58
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Al! posted:
that's really cool. i like it quote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMOAXm94VWo i went and found some content too this isnt actually an ad i guess but  here's some whimsical typography from panola mississippi 1856  and wouldnt ya know it they were advertising something else in panola mississippi 1856  hey heres a classy coke ad  also i found this 
oystertoadfish has issued a correction as of 05:20 on Jun 25, 2016 |
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Jun 25, 2016 05:14
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"genuinely good to the taste"
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Jun 25, 2016 05:19
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"All my children will ever drink anymore" raves lower middle class mom who's too tired to feed their children anything but fast food. "I developed diabetes as an adult and this is a time before insulin was readily available"
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Jun 25, 2016 05:23
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Al! posted:
what the gently caress is a double sized ditto that costs twice as much as a steak and over 6 times as much as a burger
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Jun 25, 2016 05:45
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Double sided dildo
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Jun 25, 2016 08:55
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Scrub-Niggurath posted:what the gently caress is a double sized ditto that costs twice as much as a steak and over 6 times as much as a burger ditto means likewise, its a double order so twice as much steak costs twice as much as a steak
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Jun 25, 2016 15:57
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so let me get this straight, the ad is saying you can order a steak or you can order two steaks for the price of two?
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Jun 25, 2016 17:25
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they give you a nickel off! (yeah idk why the hell youd bother advertising that but that is how it reads to me)
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Jun 25, 2016 17:30
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mrbradlymrmartin posted:they give you a nickel off! (yeah idk why the hell youd bother advertising that but that is how it reads to me) Because saving a nickel back then was like saving a dollar today. .jpg)
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Jun 27, 2016 15:42
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 1959 oooh the last year of the 50s! Surprisingly no references beatniks in ads in the 50s, maybe the 60s will get them in spades like the commercial hangover of hippy culture into the 70s.  no way this was an accident  risque  USE. ELECTRICITY. Mugs! Mugs! Mugs!!!!!!!!!  i am very confused by this advertisement. particularly the part about the "war of the heterosexuals"  more weird european sports cars  appreciate the congrats  i bet americans would really start to panic if they started to go to grocery stores and like half the shelves were empty. that hasn't happened for decades here.  this is a pretty cool one - i wonder what it says.  ETHICAL HYPNOSIS  this ad fails because it never gets not sinister.  BOOZEY   pretty cool fake column. SMOKE
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Jun 28, 2016 03:29
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Al! posted:
"Con Edison: our poo poo hasn't been working for as long as we can remember!"
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Jun 28, 2016 07:06
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This is bullshit, the ad itself already delights me greatly this is a rip-off.
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Jun 28, 2016 07:15
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Al! posted:
"War of the heterosexuals" and "heterosexual wars" were just what they called dating in the mid-20th century.
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Jun 28, 2016 18:48
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Anyone have ads from negro periodcals?
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Jun 29, 2016 04:52
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is this from the Onion, or...?
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Jun 29, 2016 18:10
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 1960 groovy man! bell bottoms! hippies! nixon! all the other 60s stuff that hasn't happened yet! ads are getting noticeably more sophisticated, but the old plain box with the words "EAT PUSSY" or something are still around. this one's light because only a few issues are available this year  a young lindsay  pretty cool imo  what are you some kind of FAKE CIGARETTE SMOKING NANCY BOY?!  terrifying!  barf!  uhhhhhhhhh no thanks.  it's probably going to be nothing.  this sounds like a really exciting record huh   pretty cool ads  ahh poo poo you got me!!! (gets out letterhead)  i finally know what an obie is.
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Jul 1, 2016 03:23
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Jul 3, 2016 04:01
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You wouldn't know it to look at her but she had a crotch stink that was once described as "a possums rear end in a top hat" by Harper's
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Jul 3, 2016 05:18
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Jul 3, 2016 06:04
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I have a collection of this stuff, mostly from the Life Magazine Run from 1936-1972. I find the World War 2 period especially interesting:     I usually focus on the images, so sometimes the context is a little vauge. This is an ad for Dixie cups:  Fer christ'sake ya broads, feed your man properly, he's saving the world:  Speaking of, there were lots of little ads about taking a lunch to work:   There were also ads to encourage people not to drive:     For several years Coke had a pretty trippy crack fairy as a spokesman:  I also have a love for 50s-60s car ads that are illustrated:        And pretty much anything that makes me laugh: honkeys.jpg        Anyway, I don't want to crowd out others, I love what's been posted.
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Jul 4, 2016 01:17
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OK one more because I don't know what the christ e: OK that by itself is a deep well     THEY KNOW US     
Nebakenezzer has issued a correction as of 01:37 on Jul 4, 2016 |
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Jul 4, 2016 01:30
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Nebakenezzer posted:Speaking of, there were lots of little ads about taking a lunch to work: < HOT DAN the mustard man
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Jul 4, 2016 01:37
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this one is terrifying
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Jul 4, 2016 01:37
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Parahexavoctal posted:is this from the Onion, or...? Yeah it's a running joke from their Our Dumb Century book.
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Jul 4, 2016 01:40
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