Some books that have influenced my lyrics pt 1 : The 22 Immutable Laws Of Marketing
You might be asking “What the fuck is a book about marketing doing on an playful,antifascist,alt-project’s reading list?”
The book is called “The 22 Immutable Laws Of Marketing” and its over 100 years old.
Well truth be told, when I was studying marketing I read an enormous amount of books on the topic, enormous for me is 3 books because I have ADHD(you probably know that because I don’t shut up about it).
“The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing” may have been written over a century ago and in a Pan Atlantic English style, but upon studying digital marketing, it becomes clear that certain psychological tactics outlined in the book have been digitized and automated by data-driven systems. This book influenced my song “Pay Your Taxes” due to the fact that companies who have perpetuated society’s transformation into a marketing-oriented behemoth are not paying taxes.
As you delve deeper into the subject of marketing, it becomes apparent that market mechanisms have colonized our society, infiltrating even the most basic aspects of our thought processes.
The government’s utilization of stealth taxes, such as mandatory car insurance and high rent, can be seen as a manifestation of fascism. Furthermore, the push towards mandating electric cars as a solution disregards the potential class divide it could create and the destruction of the used car market meaning that the people who cant afford new cars will not drive . In essence, anything that is mandatory and not regulated by government is not a service, but a means for profit. Car insurance, NCT, and taxes are all forms of car tax, and mandatory electric cars will create a new class divide with no public transport alternative
another thing that influenced “PYT” is that Facebook who are using Ireland as a tax haven charged me VAT automatically for running an ad, The cynicism was infuriating. I was made extremely cogniscient of rules in the book like “Fomo marketing” which had been observed for the first time in this book, a very sinister thing that is used now to sell more shit.
Now I know they tell you that car insurance is not tax but it is actually a stealth tax on the poor because they have made it mandatory to have insurance even though other countries have much clearer and transparant modals for insurance which are not distressing and anti worker, particularly Australia and France. You cannot get employed in rural areas of Ireland without getting a car thus making it mandatory and therefore a stealth tax. The same is true of being taxed on your commute by 21 euro a day. so in reality you are doing 10 hours work instead of the 8 that thats apparant and are being taxed 21 euro for the two hours it takes to get there and back,then they call us leeches for striking.
Studying marketing taught me about the underpinning cynicsm upon which human trade is conducted in an attention driven world, for example, people will only share content that improves their perceived identity, as in, they want to be cool by association, Imagine a bunch of tech companies hacked the entire planet based off of this concept? Studying marketing helped immunise me about such mechanisms and I think artists who refuse to learn marketing are either pig headed, stubborn or wile thran. You will be able to spot self serving narcissism in online political spaces very quickly as well.