Overthinking for the literal mind. By Max Lom-Bor
By Max Lom-Bor
Overthinking for the literal mind.
I’m becoming more literal than lateral. I don’t think that was meant to to happen. It’s taken a lifetime of build up and 3 weeks to realise.
Marc asked us all “why are you here?” I said “it’s something to do”. I was quickly reminded I was ‘being a little dick’. But… It is. It IS just another thing to do. We are all strange little creatures on a rock in the middle of floating nothingness, looking for something to do, and I found my thing. That is as far as my ‘lateral thinking’ extends.
I think we need to stop glorifying this career path into something it is not. Countless speakers romanticise our industry, spinning a web of intellectually flowered wankery to imply that advertising is more than just selling shit in various different ways. And selling someone else’s shit lets not forget.
You can spend a lifetime over analysing what creativity is, how it comes about, how best to prompt and foster it.. But why would you? It just happens, or it doesn’t. and coffee helps. .
This is not to say that I don’t have deep thoughts about life, love, existence and meaning, BUT philosophical, elaborate, exaggerated storytelling can be very distracting from just… Doing stuff.
Advertisers are over thinkers, packaged nicely. Our industries heroes are sometimes wrongly portrayed as Demi-gods, which they are certainly not. They are people who thought of ways to sell things that other people made. They are no better than anyone I sit with on this course with every day, they were just given the right opportunity.
I have spend a majority of my last three years philosophising about our vast universe, trying to conjure some deeper conclusion of how and why I came to be. But I stopped. I am now of the ethos that if you delve too far into social psychology you’ll never make friends, if you try and be creative, you won’t be, if you idolise people who you could easily be better than, you won’t surpass them.
The golden years of advertising are over. That’s another thing. Shove your champagne trolleys and cocaine stories up your awarded arses. All you were, was us, in a time where people were more susceptible to your shite. If WE find the same vulnerabilities in modern society, get ready for the wave. Get ready for our egos to balloon. Get ready for us to strap a snorkel to the face of the ‘golden years’ and lay a nice healthy turd down that historical snorkels pipe. Vive la revolution.
