Guerilla Mindfulness: How I Use Ads As a Free Course in Happiness

Without buying the products

Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash

5 weeks ago, I installed a free ad blocker called ublockorigin on my work computer (it blocks Youtube ads, I highly recommend it). Since installation, it’s blocked more than 420,000 ads. Four hundred and twenty thousand. That’s an average of 12,000 ads a day, just on my work computer.

As people who want to be mindful, we have to fight for mindfulness in the every day, capitalistic world. It’s easy to be mindful on a retreat, or in a temple. It’s much more challenging to maintain mindfulness when more than 10,000 ads a day are blitzed into our subconscious.

---

One month ago, while teaching a unit on advertising, I took my students through an analysis of the hilarious “Dior Sauvage” commercial featuring Johnny Depp. My students and I had a good laugh between the coyote on top of Johnny Depp’s car, and him burying his necklace in the desert (you may want to watch the ad for context).

As we were laughing at the pure silliness of it, a realization hit me like a ton of empty, terrible-smelling cologne bottles. They understand exactly what’s wrong with modern society! I realized. They’re just not helping.

---

In the digital age, advertising has traveled far beyond commercials on TV that allow us to choose if we want to buy something. When we’re seeing tens of thousands of ads a day, we are being manipulated. Ads are flashing across corners of our screens for split seconds. Not long enough for us to consciously register them, but long enough to nudge us into remembering that it’s been a while since we filled our mouths with the cool, refreshing taste of Spreeet™.

They’re not playing fair, so neither should we. 

Let me introduce you to my happiness-boosting technique that I call “guerilla mindfulness.” Webster’s defines guerilla as: “a member of a small independent group taking part in irregular fighting, typically against larger regular forces.” That’s the definition that I’m working with here. Guerilla mindfulness is a series of physical and mental techniques that I use whenever advertising that I cannot avoid is shoved down my throat. There is some prep work involved.

“I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves.”

-Che Guevara

Step 1: Install quality ad blockers.

I use ublockorigin and ghostery. These will eliminate 90% of the ads in your digital life, cutting out most banner ads, cookies, and video ads.

Step 2: Punch the advertising algorithms in the face.

Now comes the fun part (and yes, I really do this). Once or twice a week, take a few minutes to go to Amazon / Google and search up a few things you have absolutely no intention of buying. For me, this has been power tools, car parts, and cat toys (I don’t own a home, have no interest in cars, and don’t have a cat). I’m just messin’ with algorithms.

This technique ensures that the ads that are slimy enough to slide through the cracks in my ad-blocker walls aren’t a temptation for me. When I see banner ads that get it wrong, I go out of my way to click on them, so that algorithm further believes that I want a cat tent for my non-existent backyard or some other crap. Then I cackle an evil laugh while rubbing my hands together and go on with my day.

Step 3: Train your mind, young padawan.

I used to stop at step two, and get angry whenever I saw ads that made it through my defenses. Then I realized that I was missing out on happiness-boosting benefits. Here’s where the mental technique of guerilla mindfulness comes in.

The whole point of modern advertising is to so over-saturate our attention that we spend without thinking. Guerilla mindfulness Is a thought filter to put a barrier between us and mindless spending on crap we don’t need.

Advertising is built on an exploitive type of lying. Modern advertisers know exactly what the problems in society are, but instead of offering us solutions they offer us products, because there’s no money in solutions. They know that we’re disconnected in our relationships. So they offer us shiny rocks. They know that we’re sequestered in misery-causing suburbs. So they offer us grills.

The point of guerilla mindfulness is to look past the product, and try to figure out what problem in society they’re exploiting. It’s a fun little game that shifts attention away from the crap being advertised, and onto how you can be happier without their stupid diamond/cologne. It reminds you to try to live life according to what’s really important.

---

I’ll explain this technique with three ads:

1. Johnny Depp for “Dior Sauvage”

The ad: Mr. Depp wailing on a guitar in a dimly-lit apartment, overlaid with his voice saying “I gotta get out of here.” He hops in his manly muscle car and drives out to the desert, where he stares at the sunset and buries all his jewelry. A coyote sits on top of his manly car.

The guerilla mindfulness lesson: We’ve lost our connection to Nature and sequestered ourselves in cities, and that often makes us miserable. Living away from nature and in close proximity surrounded by concrete causes us anxiety, stress, and boosts mental illness. Make a note to take a hike with a friend soon! Dior Sauvage will do nothing for your happiness. However, a hike may do wonders. Get into nature soon.

2. Traeger Grills 

The ad: A couple is moving to their new home, and a grill breaks free from their stuff and slides off the trailer! People drop what they’re doing and start chasing it with various cuts of meat. A dog runs after it with sausage links. This mob follows the grill until it rolls to a stop outside of the couple’s new home, where the message “welcome to the Traegerhood” flashes on screen. 

The guerilla mindfulness lesson: You want a grill? Buy a freakin’ grill. But not because you think it will magically create a tight-knit community for you to live in. You know who’ll do that? You will, through getting to know your neighbors and creating intentional community. A grill will not.

3. Larry The Cable Guy for Heartburn (medication)

The ad: Larry The Cable Guy screams at us about how heartburn is terrible. He drives a monster truck in a circle that is supposed to represent the “zero” heartburn that this medication will give you. Then he walks out of the monster truck and talks about how great it is that he can eat terrible foods because of the relief this medication has given him. 

The guerilla mindfulness lesson: If you at any point find yourself wanting to be like Larry The Cable Guy, rethink your life! Stop treating yourself like a public dump! Rather than taking medication to suppress your body’s natural response to eating terrible food really fast, what if you… Didn’t eat terrible food really fast?

---

Unfortunately, we can’t block all of the ads in our lives. What we can do is reclaim our minds. When ads assault you, ask yourself: “what problem are they trying to exploit, and how can I solve it in my own life without their product?”