Advertisers, marketing professionals, and influencers/sopkesmen are paid to communicate anything and everything under the sun that’s for sale, including people—sometimes through PR firms or agents… but it’s not enough to simply communicate something, they pretty much have to ‘sell’ it too, ‘here are 10 reasons why you NEED this revolutionary new colorful micro-fiber towel’, or shop at our store, or attend our school, or vote for a candidate, or support a cause... at it’s core it’s simply manipulating human behavior. When you ‘sell something’ (including ideas) you highlight the positive aspects of Subject-A, and make sure to withhold it’s/their negative aspects; and if/when you are very competitive you might even communicate the negative aspects of Rival-B, and withhold the communication of their positive aspects. It’s self-evident that there are some VERY competitive folks that use media to promote Greatness-A while criticizing Deplorable-B, causing/influencing the person that’s consuming/reading/watching/listening to make some A OR B decision based on limited and possibly faulty information that might be very, Very, VERY biased, you know, basically making some crude calculation (sorry, i’m NOT a math-guy) like A = ‘Good’ OR ‘Bad’, AND ‘Why’ sort of process, while also forming the same judgement for B, and many times not even knowing that there is a third option, Normal-C to consider... And then we might be influenced to do something that you may OR may NOT have any intention of doing, based on faulty AND/OR incomplete input/information, and possibly equating to a faulty/false ‘What’ we should do, and ‘Why’ we should do it. We are influenced to do things based on faulty/false/fictitious pretenses all of the time, sometimes we come to realize that before we react, and sometimes it takes a lifetime to realize that we were fooled. I’m sure you’ve been subjected to some ‘cheezy’ commercial that made you yell ‘bull-shit’ maybe once or twice, because you could discern/tell that they were communicating faulty/limited/inaccurate/false information... that’s almost a daily occurrence when you live deep in society in an early-voting state (NH) and a registered voter, some of these political knuckleheads spend an awful-lot of time and money trying to communicate hot-topic issues of the day... i’m old and boring enough where i enjoy following politics, so it’s an easy example for me... we get peppered with phone surveys, mailings, and tv/radio/internet advertisements for months.

 So that long-winded introduction was an exceedingly crude/elementary primer in advertising, math, sales*, and manipulation... since i’m not a subject-specialist on any of those topics i’ll move right along... but we already know that many people lie for a living, and other people lie about themselves and their strengths and weaknesses, and lie about other people and their strengths and weaknesses, or what they have done, or ‘used to do’ or practice, or ‘never-ever-ever did’ themselves... it doesn’t take a subject-matter specialist to point out the obvious/self-evident things that we all understand by the time that we graduate elementary-school, or have regular social interaction. Some people are paid very well to influence other people (others do if for free) to get them to buy something, or vote for something, or to help a cause, or to react in a number of various ways according to their bosses/customer’s desires. Some of the techniques used to manipulate us often use K-6 school-ground banter and gossip, especially in politics. There are politicians and their ‘spokesmen/woman’ that routinely use the old ‘no i didn’t, you did!’, and then there’s the ‘i’m not doing that, you’re crazy and mean for even suggesting that’ (as they are doing right in front of your face)... anyways, you probably get the point. But professionals that study human-nature/behavior/psychology understand how to use more advanced/technical methods of persuasion, but the most common that we see are lying, deflecting, distracting, intimidating, fake-reward (i'm sure you can think of others too), they can be in-your-face shock-jock obvious, or much more subtle and suggestive.

 Subtle suggestion could be as simple as someone 'dropping a hint' as to what they really want for their birthday, or it can be more dubious when combined with audio/visual methods that can literally capture our attention, and then stimulate glands, which can release hormones and leave people ‘feeling’ many different ways, and imprinting the ‘suggestion’.  People routinely use audio to make ourselves feel different, it’s not for people to play music they appreciate to help with chores, and it’s not uncommon for today’s power-lifters to use high-energy, loud, violent music to stimulate a channeled explosive attempt to move heavy things... and it’s not uncommon for people to listen to soft pleasant music to help calm and their minds and relax/ease tension… and it’s not uncommon for night-clubs to play sensual/rhythmic music to entice close dancing, grinding, twerking; or hyped music that invites insane raging people to behave like a pack of semi-conscious demons. Those are just a few examples of how music is used to stimulate various hormones to yield certain effects and probable responses... music plus environment can equate to a pleasant efficient day, torn or strained soft-tissue, relaxation, peace, impulsive sex, raging-riots, etc.

 Then there is video/visual stimulation, let's go back to the example of night-clubs.  Using strobe-lights to flash with the beat of the music is a not-so 'special' effect, it's an effect

 *Actually, I have been in the sales business off and on over the years, but worked as a subject-matter specialist on product and theory of effectiveness, to educate and empower customers to make informed decisions with as little bias as possible, offering my opinion when asked.

REFERENCES:  You don't get any here, but most of this is self-evident/obvious, maybe you just needed someone to connect some dots for you.  BUT, if any of my points make you curious then PLEASE use your critical-thinking--and the same tools that you used to land on this post--to investigate/read/learn about them elsewhere too... otherwise I could easily manipulate the intelligence out of you, and sell you a flaming bag of dog-sh!t suggesting that it's a tasty birthday cake, you know, just blow-out the candle.  Don't just settle for one person's perspective.

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