Dismantled

Every time I look at ads recently, I've been seeing much more than I used to.

Since working on ads and public relations projects in an organisation for the last few weeks, I've begun to understand how they work and are shaped.

And so I no longer see an ad telling me to buy something - instead I see images, drafts and drafts of them, worked on by someone in long hours between lunch breaks, of unproductive office hours spent checking emails or reading newspapers, of mental blocks. I see an ad and I see the person who worked on it, who was perhaps proud of it by the end, happy with the border colour change they made in the final copy, or the changing of "great" to "awesome" somewhere in the copy.

And it makes everything about ads feel more human and alive.

Ads written by people who wondered perhaps, during idle moments, whether they should change jobs, whether they were happy, if they would come up with something better.

And eventually they met their deadline or were satisfied, and the ad was produced. Then they went on to create more ads, and by the time they're laid in their grave there will be a trail of work left behind with their invisible mark on it.

Like empty rooms and houses once lived in, breathed in, swore in, hated in, loved in.

And in a way the ad becomes something beautiful.

Like a small piece of insignificant permanence left by someone who in 100 years will probably be forgotten. Perhaps it will be uncovered by someone studying cultural history. And they'll laugh at the misguided values or artistic direction, wonder at the person who made it, and pass over it.

But somehow this thought loses its impact once it is articulated as I've tried above. It becomes a tired thought, trotted out in many guises. Words fail it, and it disappears as either odd and incomprehensible, or commonplace and weak.

Words, words, words.