Next Level BS #8: iStock Republicans, Inept Obama Administration, Gluten Madness, and more...

love this show! sub and a star from me

a reply to: LDragonFire
Well try this. Real right wingers, scrolling down a bit, I found just about everything but a prius driver lol. It's not like everything in the video is a lie, just used stock photos to illustrate the point. He could have gone out, found real examples of every one, hired a photographer to take nice pictures. A lot easier and cheaper to buy some stock photos to illustrate the point though, isn't it?

originally posted by: TKDRL
It's not like everything in the video is a lie,

But it is. He's putting faces of people with claims. Those people are stock photos able to be licensed in the $300 to $1,200 range (if properly licensed) for this type of use. We have no idea of the political affiliation of any of them. But we do know the guy used in the video thumbnail is SPANISH! He's much more likely to be a socialist than anything.

When I was in advertising, we did a similar styled campaign about the diversity of people in the US Coast Guard. We went out and photographed the actual people in the Coast Guard. The same in a campaign for a cancer center -- we photoed the actual cancer survivors.

As we said in the video, when you put a price tag on credibility, you have none.

And that's the thing both parties need the most right now, credibility.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord
Everything the text said is true though. Republicans are not all white rich racist people, just as democrats aren't all lazy potsmoking hippies. I thought the message was more important than the backround images, can't refute the message, so attack the visuals? Seems kinda cheap.

a reply to: TKDRL

No one's attempting to refute the message, only pointing out the dishonesty.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord
So if at the end there was text that said something like "Stock photos used for representation purposes only" there wouldn't be a problem then?

a reply to: TKDRL

Yes, there is still a problem. The video creator is associating people with statements of beliefs.









Every image in the video is a stock photo, and in almost every case -- certainly those above -- the faces are used elsewhere in online marketing, and easily discovered as such. And in at least two of the cases above (beard guy and fire fighter), the images ORIGINATED outside the US.

It's obvious dishonesty.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord
I don't understand the problem at all, people pay actors and photogenic people, or use stock photos to represent things all the time. Is it you have a problem with any ads using stock photos/paid actors etc? Or just political ads?

a reply to: TKDRL

As I previously mentioned, my background is in advertising. When representing real people next to statements of fact, we always used real people that match those statements of fact.

Hiring an actor to read a script, is very very different from randomly selecting faces from stock photography pools. Those models -- the faces -- have no association with the statements of fact with which they are paired.

If your statement of fact is someone who survived cancer, you better use a cancer survivor. Like we did for this ad campaign about 10 years ago.


If your statement of fact is someone who is unexpectedly a republican, you better use someone who is really a republican.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord
Ok I get it now. Thanks for explaining, I agree with you then. I would rather all people in ads be real as well. Sadly, you don't see much ethics like that in advertising these days.

a reply to: TKDRL

Actually, in the ad campaigns utilizing statements of fact about people, generally speaking, real people that match those statements are used. No one want's to get caught making false claims.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord
Oh, I didn't know that. The marketting stuff that I watched must have been black hat or something then lol. They were more worried about image and looking attractive than anything else. If you wanted to attract a young female base, then you use pictures of young females(mostly good looking, balanced with a few less attractive ones), didn't matter where they came from, stock was fair game.

The last south park episode did a wonderful bit on the gluten hysteria.

a reply to: Jungian

That episode was hilarious.

I understand people with allergies and such, but this gluten-free trend is totally BS.
If you worry about your health eat whatever you want and just workout...
Isn't it somehow an arrogance to be so snob about your food when half of the world lives in hunger?
For most people life is already hard enough, without worrying about gluten.
there are people who live their lives in hunger, searching for food in the garbage or making so little money that they barely can feed their families...

Humanity ate gluten for soooo long, that (even if it's bad), we have adjusted to it.

Gluten is a lot like water, for those that are intolerant they know that it makes them sick but sometimes you just need to eat something you like. With water it's, even though you know fluoride is poison, you just gotta have a drink.

originally posted by: Dr1Akula

Isn't it somehow an arrogance to be so snob about your food when half of the world lives in hunger?

Exactly. The gluten hysteria and the whole organic food craze is purely for the first world. Snobby for sure. But if you show these people the big picture as you so nicely presented, you will be ignored by them. They are on such a fkn high horse its utterly disgusting.

Our next episode will be going up shortly.

In this one, we outline how -- if the new laws the Tories want to pass in the UK go into effect -- every ATS member living in the UK could be classified in a group that will need to have their posts to ATS approved by the government, before they post it.

We're not making this up.

a reply to: theNLBS
What? That sounds insane, I hope you are just being sensational......

Funny you talk about the nsa tapping the fiber lines, back in the day when I did my selling of Verizon fios I had a guy tell me that is the very reason he would never get any fiber in his home.
And this was 10 years ago.
Good episode agian

a reply to: LDragonFire

Ya its so funny how every one is ok with the incompetent excuse when it comes to 911, agreeing that the gov could not have seen it coming and it wasn't their fault they just didn't listen.
Obama will be the worst admin till the next one tho.