Ad Aged: Angry.

Thursday, October 12, 2023

Angry.

I've pre-empted the post I had planned to post this morning.

I'll save it for a later date.

I couldn't sleep last night.

Not the usual insomnia.

Anger.

Anger at the silence.

Anger at the smiling, smirking, self-promoting business as usual.

Anger at how, to my very wide field of vision, I've seen nothing from what we used to call the ad industry about the sadness, the pain, the horror, the multi-generational PTSD so many Jewish people are feeling right now.

Over the past few years, I've seen the industry issue statements against all kinds of hate, violence, racism, prejudice and more. I've seen corporate logos be adapted in all kinds places to reflect, at least semiotically, concern.

I've seen it.

You've seen it.

We'll see it again.

What I haven't seen is it expressed by agencies or holding companies with regard to what's happening right now to Jewish people in Israel.

Murder. Beheadings. Rape. Unspeakableness and hate.

I haven't seen an expression of concern from agencies and holding companies for Jewish people. Around the world. In America. In Israel. Captive in Gaza.

Maybe it's my myopia. And I missed it.

But I haven't seen kindness.

I haven't seen anything.

In America, Jews make up less than two-percent of the population and are on the receiving end of fifty-four percent of the hate crimes.

Jews are less than one-percent of the world's population. We've been kept or quota'd our of colleges, schools, neighborhoods, country-clubs, professions and more. Not long ago, not in the past. In the now.

We are not far away from the killing of half of all Jews.

We see Hitler being lionized.

We hear people shouting 'Gas the Jews.' Or 'Finish the Job.'

Yet.

Nothing from the agencies and holding companies.

Maybe it's me.

And I just haven't noticed.

But I've made a pretty good living being a professional noticer. So I'd be surprised if I missed it. From hundreds of agencies and the five major holding companies.

A lot of people have sent me notes.

Kind notes.

A lot of Jews are scared. In disbelief. Numbed. Worried.

We have no place on earth.

Jews were essentially exiled from every country in Arabian world. Slaughtered in Europe. Increasingly under threat in America, even in New York.

Again, maybe I'm wrong.

But does any other religion need metal detectors and concrete barriers and armed guards at its holy places--at its temples, at its schools?

We accept that unnormality as normal.

Silence.

Where can we go to live in peace?

Where can we go where people judge us not by some affinity, however intense or slight we may have to our god and our culture, but by the contents of our hearts.