The invention of lying?

This morning, while we were passing over the Bund Garden bridge towards Kalyani Nagar, I pointed out a signboard to Kymaia. It said (in Devnagari script) ‘Bund Garden Dam’ (which is funny because either ‘Bund’ or ‘Dam’ is redundant in that name, something like ‘naan roti’ or ‘chai tea’, but that is not the point of this post) and I told her that this means we are passing over the said dam. She asked me if Bund Garden is in Kharadi (another location a few miles away; which brings me to another funny thing: we seem to use the metric system but rarely ever use it to denote approximations in distance, generally preferring ‘miles’, or maybe it’s just me; but then, that too is not the point of this post), and I answered in the negative, to which she pointed to a board that was advertising an apartment building complex in Kharadi. I said, ‘No, that is an advertisement for something elsewhere, while this other board is one placed here by someone in authority, for the public to know what it is they are looking at and where it is.’

There was silence in the car, and I swear I could hear the gears in her brain whirring and clicking, trying to contextualise and cross-reference the new learning.

Then, she asked two simple questions:

1. How did I know one from the other?

2. What is an advertisement?

I thought it would be easy to answer. But once I started (with breezy confidence), I was stumped almost immediately at the daunting task of explaining something we adults take for granted but have never thought of why we do so and delved into the explanation as derived from first principles.

So, firstly, to a mind not conditioned to see boards and find the context with the text and imagery around it, as well as its placement, it is well nigh impossible to grasp which board is which. How do I know that the board ‘Welcome to Pune Smart City’ is different from ‘Welcome to Kul Ecoloch’? How do I know that a billboard that promises me ‘Free’ something is actually luring me into buying something? How do I differentiate between passive factual information (like names of areas, roads, and apartment complexes) and persuasive commercial calls to action (advertising)? Maybe it only comes with experience.

As one grows, one learns to apply filters that can distinguish between signal and noise, and the mind learns and adapts to quickly tell one from the other, absorb or reject the data prima facie, and then subconsciously analyse what seems important before deciding whether it is actionable or to be discarded or merely stored for later retrieval. I am sure through faster reading abilities, quicker processing, and much trial and error, at some point, one ‘gets’ it. Maybe this is one of those things a parent, however reason-driven and liberal, must tell the child that she’d ‘get it’ too once she grows up. Of course, I am not sure that this question falls under that category, and maybe there are some experts and parents out there who could help me explain to her a generic way of distinguishing between the two types of data without any reference to a specific context, or geography, or culture, or language.

So, while the first question is probably answered relatively easily, the second one is what got me really thinking. How can I speak of advertising without referring to its central objective of influencing the targeted population into making up their minds about something and then acting on it, aka emotional manipulation? How can I tell her that the ‘Book your new home in Rs.10,000 only’ is simply a lure, a bait, and not the literal truth?

This brings me to ‘truth’ which, along with honesty, curiosity, kindness, generosity, and integrity, is something we would like to think we have ingrained in our daughter as the cornerstones of a life well-lived. Now, ‘lying’ in the Gadgil household is a big no-no, even though we know that this is an idealistic position that would never be achieved fully. But that honesty is held up as an ideal (whether or not practical at all times) itself should tell that it is valued dearly. Now, within this framework, I had to think of a way to explain marketing and advertising to my 6-year-old, and all I could come up with is a (very) long-winded explanation:

‘See, Kym, there are many people in this world who do one, some, or many things better than others. Some of these add value to our lives at some point, and some don’t. But we have no way of knowing not only what these are but who and where they are should we need to find them and avail of the value they add to our lives. So, each of these people who can add value to someone’s life put themselves out in public through hoardings and newspapers, television films and phone messages, and various other ways, and tell everyone what they do and how well, how quickly, how cheaply they do it. And then, we decide whether that is something we want, and can afford. If we do, then we get in touch with them and do the deal. But since there are only so many places they could talk about themselves and what they sell, and many more people who may want what they are selling, each of them makes their message more and more attractive, as well as more and more specific to the kind of people that actually may want what they are selling. Also, there are many people who are selling the same thing, and the people who may consider buying these things may need to decide who they will buy from based on the relative value they see they are getting for their time, money, and effort. This leads to each of these sellers putting out their claims in attractive ways and in a competitive fashion, giving the potential buyers a way to compare them with others selling the same thing. Lastly, people who are going about their lives have limited time (and attention spans) to spend on seeing and receiving these messages, and that means these messages have to be short, while quickly giving the potential buyer an idea of what is being sold, comparative information to demonstrate why their offering is superior, and some way for the potential buyer to be persuaded to making the decision quickly. This leaves no room for nuance, and we have these messages that get to the point quickly and tell you all of this at a glance, while papering over much of what you’d think is important to you, but has been left unsaid and for you to discover. Do you know what this means? It means the seller starts to tell small lies. Sometimes these lies become so important for the seller to have their buyer believe that they are no longer small. And then, other competitors to this seller (the ones who are selling the same thing to you) notice it, they make their lies bigger too. Eventually, what you see is a slick, well-packaged, slightly false, exaggerated narrative of the product or service and its usefulness to you, where it is left to you (though there are government agencies and self-regulatory bodies to do that too) to decode the message, understand what it means, and decide whether or not to act on it. This message is advertising.’

Whew!

Her response though was brilliant: ‘This means everyone is lying to you and you just have to figure out who is lying the least, right Baba?’

Ah, how fast she has grown.

#LearningWithKymaia

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