One social media user from Florida recently shared their distaste for the growing severity of ads by posting a clip of an LED billboard truck to the r/WTF subreddit.
"This truck has these bright a** LED billboards on all three sides, you can see them a mile away," read the caption.
The way the truck's advertising catches drivers' attention, the user explained, is practically a driving hazard, since the rear-facing LED lights in question can prove uncomfortable to a driver's vision, especially at night.
Beyond serving as a distracting and potentially dangerous nuisance for drivers, however, truckside ads are only one symptom of the larger problem of excessive advertising today.
In our day-to-day lives, there's no escaping advertising culture. Advertising figures so fundamentally into our surroundings and belongings that billboards, radio ads, truckside ads, and more can infiltrate even a simple drive to the grocery store.
As advertisements become more and more rampant, designers are starting to resort to extreme measures — such as powering a billboard truck with LEDs — in order to make an impact with their campaigns. In fact, according to a 2023 study by the University of Southern California, we encounter about 5,000 ads per day, many of them without even noticing.
Unfortunately, advertising — especially advertising as forceful as this latest Reddit post captured — encourages consumers to make purchases regardless of necessity, prompting us to stay "on-trend" with the newest, most cutting-edge stuff.
As a result of these overconsumption behaviors, we waste money, and much of what we buy ends up getting thrown out and filling up landfills before the end of its life, generating air pollution and thereby contributing to our rising planetary temperatures and unstable weather patterns.
To break free from the cycle of buying and throwing away, you can try selling or donating your old belongings and shopping secondhand in order to extend product life cycles and save a little money along the way. In general, aim to shop more mindfully to make sure you don't purchase beyond what you need.
"Give it ten years and you'll only be able to buy a new car if you sign an agreement to have one of these in your windshield that makes you watch an ad every time you start the car," one user commented.
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"They should be illegal, they are blinding and distracting," another wrote, referring to the LED truckside ads in question. "Neon lights under vehicles is illegal in most states, yet these abominations are allowed to wreak havoc on the roads."
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