Oh, you are absolutely right. The whole concept of advertising as an industry happened during this period.
There is a pretty great documentary by Adam Curtis on this titled The Century of the Self, which focuses heavily on the influence of Edward Bernays. We are still dealing with the fallout of his impact on society:
Bernays used ideas of his uncle Sigmund Freud to help convince the public, among other things, that bacon and eggs was the true all-American breakfast.
There were real concerted efforts not just to get people to buy things, but to change the way people thought about things, and they were surprisingly effective.
And as far as the gilded-age cyberpunk distopia goes, I think All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace is a good follow-up. Curtis shows the overlap and collision of Randian philosophy (which influenced Alan Greenspan), the new field of ecology, and the growing digital computer revolution.
Taken together, I think these documentaries explain a lot of how we got where we are today.
Oh, you are absolutely right. The whole concept of advertising as an industry happened during this period.
There is a pretty great documentary by Adam Curtis on this titled The Century of the Self, which focuses heavily on the influence of Edward Bernays. We are still dealing with the fallout of his impact on society:
There were real concerted efforts not just to get people to buy things, but to change the way people thought about things, and they were surprisingly effective.
And as far as the gilded-age cyberpunk distopia goes, I think All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace is a good follow-up. Curtis shows the overlap and collision of Randian philosophy (which influenced Alan Greenspan), the new field of ecology, and the growing digital computer revolution.
Taken together, I think these documentaries explain a lot of how we got where we are today.