An eighth grade education is enough to get you through the majority of written and visual media. What we see and hear is geared towards an educated mass that realized that major basic education never survived the High School years. This is a purposeful manipulation geared towards addressing the largest segment of the population. We aim to please the masses, not just with Walmart, but with the other well placed distractions put before us. I believe that beneath much of the media we consume there are a series of subliminal messages geared towards teaching us the lessons we didn’t learn in school; the lessons that the creators–be they from the journalistic or entertainment realm–want us to learn.
Lets be clear: most of what is put forward as media is controlled by the power elite. These collectives make their money exactly like street drug dealers–they offer you a drug, which makes you feel good enough to come back for more and more. However, the drug might be cut with some real deep knowledge, should you be Einstein-slick enough to figure it out.
I first encountered the cavalcade of deeper meaning when I started watching Kubrick. 2001 is layered so thick with meaning that cracking through to the core can make someone’s career. However, not everyone is as subtle and layered as Kubrick and not everyone is taking this subliminal meaning to the positive side of the spectrum. When a Subway commercial quietly displays clips of Katniss Everdeen and reminds you that being bold could mean going to Subway and buying their food, they are manipulating you.
The key is to be smart enough to know it is happening.