BENGALURU : As an aspiring journalist, I wanted to write about important issues – wars, politics, and healthcare. But will I be able to explain pathos like Arundhati Roy? Or analyse politics like Shekhar Gupta? Most importantly, what about the smaller issues that plague us? Who speaks about the mundane, everyday problems of people? Like YouTube ads, for example!
For the longest time, I paid YouTube a premium to avoid their ads. Till I found hacks around it. A different browser, an extension, or an add-on tool created by a developer in Serbia. I once even changed my Ad Settings to ‘Ukraine’ so that the ads would be new to me. At Rs 129 a month, the amount isn’t too steep. Smokers calculate the price of things in terms of cigarettes, so it’s a case of seven cigarettes. But my issues are ideological. I have spent a substantial time of my life on YouTube. I have used it to learn standup comedy, the guitar, swimming, and writing. I have given the website my time in happiness and sorrow. I find it atrocious that they would ask me to pay up to avoid ads.
In the TV era, advertisements were made generically for a billion people. If you watched an ad for Itch Guard, you understood that it was something the nation was going through. After Covid, even soaps and shampoos are promising protection and immunity. Fintech apps have taken over the most plum spot for advertising – during the IPL. These ads are a mirror to the economy – a young nation with disposable income. If TV ads are a mirror to the economy, personalised ads are mirrors into your soul. If you get an ad for a pull-up machine, it is because you have spent considerable time looking for them. If you’re watching TV with friends, they get a little peek into your life. They know for example, that you’ve been looking for comfortable briefs, or beard growth oil!
TV ads give you a chance to praise or diss them as a collective experience. Ads are powerful, nostalgic time-machines. The ZooZoo ads for example are a crucial part in the 2011 World Cup memories. But with personalised ads, one can’t even complain to others about the terrible nature of ads. Sometimes, you want to watch a song, and another whole song will feature as the ad. Then there are ‘skippable’ and ‘unskippable’ ads.
If a dog is man’s best friend, YouTube is a writer’s worst enemy. For most people, YouTube is something you go to after a long day’s work. YouTube is a veritable Mirror of Erised – where you watch things that you’re interested in. But for writers, YouTube is a black hole. A few clicks, and you’re transported into the worlds of Bukowski and Dostoevsky. But keep loitering around, and you will find yourself staring at two Indonesian teenagers digging up a swimming pool inside a forest.
YouTube is a hydra-headed monster that eats up everything in its sight. But now I have learnt to treat a YouTube ad as an entry barrier. When an ad plays, I ask myself – is it really worth sitting through this ad? Do I really want to watch a woman cursing her departed husband for not taking term insurance? Is the video I want to watch really worth subjecting myself to another motivational speaker selling a webinar to transform my life? With a simple switch, I was able to make YouTube ads my friend. They now act as Master Shifu, preventing me from watching yet another video of MasterChef. I now wait for the ads to play out, adopting Buddha’s Middle Path to waste time on the Internet!
(The writer’s views are his own)