this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2025

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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

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Commercials seem to be normalizing an unhealthy work-life balance more. (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world

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I've seen others recently, but the two I saw today are a Capital One commercial and a Progressive commercial.

In the first, the Capital One guy is talking to a couple of people. He is asked what he does for fun, and he does not know what to say. Then, they cut to him getting ready to sleep at the bank.

Another is the Progressive commercial where Flo talks with another woman about vacations. The other woman doesn't seem to know what a vacation is. Flo begins describing what one is. In the end, she says she doesn't really know, gives up, and says she's never been on one either.

I was thinking about them while driving and came to the title thought.

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[–] ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world [S] 26 points 1 year ago (14 children)

I usually let them go for me out of laziness, but I mute them for my family to spare them the exposure. I also regularly discuss the problems with the way things are advertised with my kids so that they won't get sucked in by them. Crazy world. Hard to avoid adverts in the U.S.

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[–] foodandart@lemmy.zip 32 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I cut the cable TV cord in 1999. For whatever movies/TV we've wanted to watch, we've just gone to our public library to get DVDs and later on, streamed stuff.

uBO in all the browsers as well.

If you make a concerted effort, you can de-TV the household and it takes little time to find ways pick up on watching the things you like - w/o commercial interruption.. I could not imagine watching an evening of broadcast TV.

Given that the average show is now 40 minutes long - thats an hour of commercials between the 3 primetime hours of 8 and 11 pm.

I'm not going to waste an hour every night looking at things I do not want or need in my life.

Fuck that shit.

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[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I’m not going to waste an hour every night looking at things I do not want or need in my life.

WHY WON'T YOU LOOK AT ME??? I LEFT YOU A BANANA IN THE MICROWAVE!!!

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[–] foodandart@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 year ago

YOU! YOU are the one that left the frigging banana in the microwave w/o telling me?

The fucking thing rotted and became a fruit fly farm.. When I went to heat my leftovers, last Friday.. I released the swarm o'doom!

BASTARD! I curse theeeEeeEe for eternity!

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[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 point 1 year ago

that was for op? sorry, i thought it was a gun.

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[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

wait they're 40 now? i could have sworn we has 22s and 52s. fuck.

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[–] foodandart@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

Yup! Pull down a torrent of a current season broadcast TV show and check out how long it isn't.

52 minutes was the length of shows in the 60s and 70's. This is why it's almost impossible to see uncut episodes of the original Star Trek on a cable channel, let alone a broadcast one..

It was already all but impossible to find when I cut the cord in '99.

Looking at the commercial TV cable channels - I have the first 8 seasons of The Walking Dead.. they run from 43 to 51 minutes in length (though the longer ones appeared in the 8th season (?) - was that when the channels started overlaying ads during the credit rolls? I know that's a thing.)

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[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

huh i always thought they just sped the broadcast up 10% or so. almost imperceptible unless you've got good pitch.

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[–] Hatshepsut@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Look into setting up Pi-hole. Blocks ads and trackers. Been using it for years.

Also uBlock Origin as was mentioned.

Haven’t seen any ads in a very long time, and that’s only when watching over-the-air local TV and my finger stays near the mute button.

Advertising has become an omnipresent psychological assault.

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[–] fosho@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

note that pi hole doesn't block YouTube ads in smart TV apps. they push those through the actual video stream in order to get through ad blockers more effectively. I spent a weekend setting up a pi hole only to discover this sad fact.

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[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 1 point 1 year ago

its still useful for other cases though. ublock for the web browsers, pihole for everything else

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[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

Hard to avoid adverts in the U.S.

Unless you watch live sports, it's really not.

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[–] AreaKode@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

I've watched NFL games for years. 2.5 minutes is engrained into my brain. Mute just before the fade out, and I just feel that the time has come where I can look at the screen again.

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[–] nevyn@lemmy.vg 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

Makes sense for those who have children. I don't have children so I never considered that monitored exposure to adverts would be a necessary part of their education. I have no idea how a parent could effectively raise a child to understand how bad the adverts are, when children these days are so over exposed to those adverts from day 1.

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[–] ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world [S] 3 points 1 year ago

Well, you just start like most anything, I guess. I talk to them. A commercial comes on and I say why I don't think it's good to listen to. I talk about them targeting children, why that's a problem, normalizing unhealthy things, predatory practices for poor/uneducated/whatever, and so on. I point out specific wording or presentation that makes it problematic and explain it. They probably don't understand most of it yet, but the way I look at it, I'm planting seeds that'll make more sense when they're ready for it.

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