I went to the Isles of Scilly a little while ago. While I was there, I was struck by how weirdly tranquil it was. A world apart from the mainland, a mere 20 minute helicopter flight away. And that bit of the mainland is Penzance, a gorgeous fishing town. Hardly the Bronx.
It took me ages to work out just why it was so emotionally peaceful. It wasn’t the absence of people, even though there are only about 2,000 people on all the islands combined. It wasn’t the absence of traffic, even though there are hardly any cars on the main island, St Mary’s, and none at all on the smaller islands like Tresco or Bryher.
It was the almost total absence of public space advertising.
Living in London puts you in a state of constant cognitive assault. Buses, billboards, roadside grit boxes, phone boxes, tube escalators, tube platforms, tube walls, the backs of bus tickets… everything is plastered in messages. Clever ones, usually, with eyecatching artwork and tricksy slogans designed to burrow their way into your consciousness. Grinning mind eels. Memes with hooks.
In Scilly, there were simply too few people for corporations to bother advertising to them. There were only a couple of thousand of us. As a market, we were irrelevant. It was like stepping back in time, to the days before humans were chiefly measured as consumers. It was almost confusing to a 21st century urbanite like me. And then, after a day or two, utterly addictive.
I’m back on the mainland, of course. But now I find myself sensitised to mental crowding in a way I wasn’t pre-Scilly. Used to be quite the urbanite, but cities seem to have lost their charm altogether. All those multicoloured sales pitches, jostling for attention. Give me a nice tree any day. At least they don’t try and play on your insecurities to sell you stuff. Well, not normally.
To cut a long story short, these stickers – designed to ‘customise’ existing advertising displays – made me giggle. I shall probably do a little pavement jig if I spot one in real life.
I am jealous. I’d love to go back to the Scilly Isles, where I had a great holiday – on St Martin’s – as a kid, despite a wild boat trip in heavy seas from St Mary’s. Big waves crashing over a very little red. The helicopter ride was exciting too!
I didn’t notice the dearth of in-yer-face adverts though. But I’m not sure if that’s because I was happily oblivious to the advertising I would have seen the rest of the time in London, or because there was a lot less of it when I was a nipper. This is the late 1970s… Hmm. I remember advertising jingles from the telly from then, but I’m sure the sale of every public space to an advertising agency kicked in far later.
I do think there was loads less advertising when we were bairns. But that might be one of those insufferable I Heart The Olden Days “Wagon Wheels used to be loads bigger” / “White dog poo, what’s that all about?” / “BRING BACK SPANGLES!” type sentiments. Is it? Dunno. Nostalgia’s less fun than it used to be.
I’ve been horrified, in the past couple of years, of the lit up billboards that now “grace” our freeways at night. It’s very distracting and completely gratuitous. I don’t know about any of you, but I’d rather not have my fellow drivers reading about the latest, greatest thing to purchase when night vision already makes driving the roads dodgy.
That’s true, those are really disruptive looming out of the darkness. Wonder if they’ve had any impact on official accident stats?