Bennett Sewell Art

You’ve seen me and I’ve seen you when we pass on the road.  I’m that cool confident dog with her head stuck out the car window; gray hair streaming, eyes wide, and the smells, oh the smells.  You probably thought that I was about being in the stimulating, sometimes intoxicating fast lane of life, a place that you secretly wish you were in every once in a while.  However, the real reason that my head is stuck out the car window is that I’m a student of billboards, as one piece of the puzzle of what makes people like you “feel good.”  It’s simple for us dogs, good food, a house with a yard in the back and a window in the front, reasonable leash time and someone to love and be loved by.  But people are so much more complex than that.  They live in a world subject to their own peculiar interpretation and the influence of other people that also want to “feel good.”

 

But back to the billboards. Billboards are there to make this “feel good” happen by inducing you to buy their product, be it clothes, booze, or watches.  They want you to “feel good” when you buy and they certainly do when they sell.  It’s all about “feel good.”  The color and brightness to catch your attention and the text that tells you what to do, what to think and where to go, all straightforward. Add a value message for Lagniappe.   

 

However the slicky people behind the billboard message know that that’s not enough.  They close the deal by slipping a message into your subconscious using the image and body language of the figure on the billboard.  It is a stealthy message that says look at me, beautiful, confident, cool, sexy, successful, popular, do as I do and you will feel as I do. Us dogs are much better than people at recognizing that we are being worked, as we don’t get bound up in what it might be rather than what it is.  So that “feel good” is in your head somewhere and then one day when the little and big rough stuff that life brings to all of us is overwhelming, that message pops into your consciousness; you can feel good by doing what the billboard figure did.  You can make your self a little bit of joy.

 

But take it from an old dog that been lost in the woods several times, this “feel good” is not where the real action is.  My owner knows that being influenced by others is part of life.  Sometimes it’s real nice, but she just wants to be aware when it is going on.  She feels good about herself, so when she puts on a dress she makes the dress look good.  She knows it’s the people that make the party; not the booze or clothes, well most of the time.

 

P.S. How do you like my outfit?