if you have something to say to the world aka creative, write a book, paint, make a film. something out of your own voice.

yes banksy is his own brand. but he is his own boss with his own thing to voice out. he aint making pretty things to sell shampoo or deodorant, like ad people.

The difference between Banksy and advertisers isn’t hard to see: advertisers manipulate people to buy their crap (often with false data, misinformation, or omission of uncomfortable facts); Banksy persuades people to actually think about the world they’re living in and if they do, that’s his reward (it’s not as if he gets a couple dollars whenever someone posts a picture of something they think might be his on the internet). Banksy uses art to speak truth with the intention of it having a positive (or at least powerful) impact on people’s lives, should they take the time to properly consider it. Advertisers transform art into cheap tricks to psychologically abuse and control the masses for the coffers of the wealthy, often with no concern for how detrimental products often are to human health and habitat.

Banksy is trying to enlighten people to the world you’re living in. Advertisers try to trick you into believing it just isn’t good enough without more things, that objects are the only things worth your time and effort, that only things can make you happy (all of which couldn’t be further from the truth).

Also, you people claiming these aren’t his ideas because you read it (or something similar) somewhere else: you’re fucking retarded. You cannot own an idea any more than you can own another person’s thoughts or opinions. Ideas are their own entities, and it often doesn’t matter where they came from, it matters what they are. I seriously doubt most of your ideas or statements are ‘original.’ In fact I recall reading similar things some other asshole posted on an unrelated article: are you sure you aren’t ‘stealing’ their ideas?

Ads for political (including anti-establishment) are not the same as ads for a product. It’s a difference between persuasion and manipulation (when manipulation is rampant in political advertising it becomes reclassified as propaganda). Buying (literally) into advertiser’s BS has a much harsher effect on this world than considering different political philosophies does, especially since they have a free pass to flat out lie to everyone about pretty much anything (yeah, I know politicians obviously lie too, but they don’t have a free pass for it and it isn’t encouraged or excused when it happens).

Banksy may well benefit from the adverts on this this page, or from subverting the standard way of producing art. To say that his work is akin to an advert is so risible as to make it redundant to explain the difference. If you don’t know – get an education.

The pedestrian comments about ‘he’s advertising’ or ‘this is advertising for him’ is really more an expression of the inability to think about the issue. Being able to type what comes into your head really doesn’t count as thinking, or negotiating an argument. It just means you have access to an Internet connected computer.

Good on you, Bansky. Keep it up.

you are astonishingly naive if you think you aren’t a victim of corporate messaging, no matter how sophisticated you think your defense mechanisms against advertising are.

Banksy has a valid point of view. It’s not the only valid point of view, but it’s a valid reaction to the vast amount of energy and money spent to try to sell us crap from every square inch of public space – airwaves, billboards, sides of buses, etc.

I see his artwork as an equal and opposite reaction to all of the piecemeal decisions that collectively add up to us being at the mercy of advertising and marketing, instead of restricting it to places and situations where there is a choice involved.

Some of the worst advertising has been used to take advantage of people’s fears, insecurities, social position, economic status, physical needs etc etc. What bad advertising does (not all the time admittedly) is take what we know about people and products and uses this to make us do things which aren’t always healthy or natural. Advertising then, isn’t always just a simple choice as you say, especially for people who don’t understand the power of advertising or aren’t smart enough to make the decisions you mention.

Let’s rethink how we want society to look and to treat us.

I definitely think it’s time that we take back some power from companies and corporations because more often than not, they DON’T have our best interests at heart. Their best interests are theirs and include making as much money from as many people as quickly as they can. Why is it that people and governments are the ones that have to police consequences in our society? We create laws to limit the effects of advertising after we realise that companies won’t police themselves and if given the opportunity, will do as much damage to society as they deem necessary to make a profit.

Banksy’s artwork

An open letter to Banksy regarding ‘The Advertisers’
http://wordsarepictures.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/an-open-letter-to-banksy/

For many years, my passion has been creative communication in one form or another—Advertising being one of them. I despise a shit ad like anyone else, but it does not follow that I suffer from them. The way one feels is entirely up to them.

I detest how much people look around for something else responsible making them miserable, without looking at their own thinking. Yeah, a vast amount of media is deplorable, but there have been many important and artful media examples created too. Advertising can lead you to the water, but if you drink it, if you allow it to dupe you, if you determine yourself by it-that’s on you.

I dig your art Banksy, but to say adverts “make” you do or think things is more insidious in my opinion. And, didn’t you make your fame by putting brilliant pieces of communication on the urban landscape without asking permission?

Take control. Turn off the TV. Write to a corporation if you think their ads suck, leer back and feel large. Love yourself. Take responsibility for your own thinking and nevermind the bullshit ads.

Better yet, pickup a marker and a pad, do the gargantuan amount of work it takes to get hired by an ad agency and fight from the inside.

♥ love.