i've been online since the mid 90s, and i've never really experienced it without an adblocker. over the last few months, i've been forced to bareback, to go online without a condom, and i've developed the same kind of general mental block on ads that i do everywhere else in society.

i'm very much post-paradoxical, when it comes to my reaction to ads - i don't even notice they're there, broadly, unless they get to me at the worst point, in which i'm likely to never interact with the manufacturer of the product, if not the product itself, ever again. i really hate them.

but, i've noticed this walking down the street, and i do a lot of walking because i don't have a driver's license; i've never driven a car before, for environmental reasons. it sort of hit me one day, walking home - i know there's a giant billboard over there, and i know there's another one down the street, etc. i recognize the existence of the ads. i don't know what the ads actually say.

so, i'll walk by the same billboard every day for weeks, months or even years and recognize it's there, without remembering what it actually says - because i filter it out of my conscious existence. i've learned to ignore it at a subconscious level, the way i'd ignore everything else that happens around me that isn't important to me, or doesn't affect my life.

we only process about 1% of what we actually experience, or so they say. most of what we see & hear just goes in one orifice and out the other. we hear a dog barking down the street, but it doesn't register. we see a forest, but we don't isolate the trees. i'm very much that way with advertising - it's just background noise, something that i know exists, but that my subconscious brain processes identify as irrelevant to my conscious, waking self.

i've more or less built up the same kind of immunity to ads on the internet over the last little while. i know they're there, so i know i'll need to hit x five or six times when i open a web page. i don't stop to learn what they are; what i've learned is to hit the mute button before i open a news site. so, i know i'm deleting dozens of ads a day, but i don't know or care what the ads are for.

if nothing else, i'll go back to windows to bring back adblock.

and, if i've been grouchier than usual lately, that's probably a big part of it - the fact that i'm dealing with all of these fucking ads, all of a sudden.