Ads on Wheels

I take the CTA every day. I either am taking it to school or to work. Lately I have been noticing that the amount of advertisements on both trains and buses has exploded. Before there would only be ads on the inside of the bus and train in certain locations. The ads have made it to the outside of the bus on bulletins as well as becoming huge stickers that nearly cover the entire bus; the same thing with the trains. I feel as though CTA is like an 8 year old that just discovered stickers. They are fascinated with them and they want to put the damn things everywhere they can. On the ceiling, doors, floors and even glass dividers. You can’t look anywhere and not be able to see an ad. The ads I hate the most are the ones for CTA. I am already on your smelly bus/train, leave me the hell alone! I really don’t know how to take this explosion of ads. Is it a good sign because companies have money to generate these advertisements or is it a bad sign because it might be a last ditch effort to get some customers. Either way it bothers me. I can’t look anywhere because there will be some company trying to get me to spend the money I don’t have on crap they are trying to sell. It works most of the time, hence my huge credit card bills. I sometimes wonder if there weren’t as many ads would I still buy the things I buy? Like, if I were to pass by the product in the store, would I stop check it out and buy it if I didn’t see the ad for it every day on the bus? I wonder how it felt before ads were invented! I bet that was awesome, you only buy what you need because ads weren’t shoved down your throat every day. But then again, if there weren’t any ads then most of the companies out here today would be out of business. The only thing keeping them alive is their marketing team forcing us to believe that their product is better than someone else’s. I just wish I could get to school/work one day and not be visually attacked with ads along the way. That would be super.