I don't love the increasing difficulty in telling if something is genuine human expression or a marketing technique designed to look like genuine expression. But as dystopian as that murkiness can seem, I still prefer it to peak 90's pre-internet advertising when record-breaking ad spending was primarily used to scream relentless in our faces until we bought stuff or developed a mental illness. Media in that era was far more monolithic and almost entirely ad-driven, and it really felt like the advertisers (and their favorite brands and multinationals) had won all the battles and the war. All that was left was to watch the latest Visa-sponsored TV event, brought you you by Honda, with special considerations from MetLife, all before a word from our sponsors over at Nestle. Even the punk festival was run by a shoe company in the 90s.

Anyway, now I sometimes get ads for stuff that isn't shilled by a multi-billion-dollar multinational and I barely every have to watch an actual advertisement, so my vote goes to new hell over old hell, no question.