Feel-Good Advertizing and Colonialist Guilt
September 21, 2015 § 1 Comment
Technology companies have developed this annoying habit in advertizing lately. I think Facebook was the first to do this, but now Microsoft is. I’m not talking about the insanely pretentious ads Apple produces. I’m talking about ads made to make white liberals in North America, Western Europe, and Oceania feel better about the world. These ads show kids in the Developing World, and pretending that they have the same chances as kids in Western Europe and North America, because they have the internet, or Facebook, or Windows 10.
To this, I call bullshit. Windows 10, like Facebook, is not going to lift a child out of poverty in Africa or Asia. Nor, for that matter, in an inner-city neighbourhood of New York City or Berlin. Nor on an aboriginal reserve in Canada or the US or Australia. These ads are simplistic and, well, frankly, stupid.
In order to correct poverty in the developing world (or parts of North America, Western Europe, and Oceania), children need a lot more than Facebook and Microsoft Windows 10. They need poverty eradication programmes that encourage families to let their kids stay in school. They need their parents to have an opportunity to succeed. They need the chance to have good nutrition. They need a chance to go to university. And that’s just a start.
Certainly, Facebook, Microsoft, and countless other technology companies, including Apple and Google, DO attempt to make a difference in the developing world, Western inner-cities, and even sometimes aboriginal reserves. But these ads are little more than an attempt to assuage our collective first world guilt for the basic systems of exploitation that ensure that Bangladesh, for example. Until we think about where our products come from (my MacBook, for example, upon which this blog post/rant is being written, was made in China), and we try to do something about it, nothing will change for all these bright kids in the developing world, no matter how much Facebook and Microsoft wants us to think otherwise.
On the upside, at least, Microsoft acknowledges at the end of the ad that we need to make sure these kids get what they need. On the downside, the answer is Window 10.
Matthew Barlow 
Well, I can’t disagree with your description of what is needed–but the people who make ads are paid to make people feel good–about themselves and the stuff they buy–and while there is lots to object to in advertising, world hunger is one of the few things it can’t be blamed for–not solely, at least. The third world is much like the environment–it did fine without us and only needs our attention today because we’ve destroyed their habitats, food sources, and way of life. Business leaders simply don’t see other people as human beings like themselves–they intrude into an area for its natural resources and give no thought to the people that live on or near them. If electronics is your concern, I suggest you focus on the rare earth elements required for chip manufacture–their highly toxic; the mining of them causes incredible environmental damage; and discarded PC, etc put these toxins into landfills…