Hicks/psychology/marketing

In the psychology article, “Does Venting Anger Feed or Extinguish the Flame?” by Brad J. Bushman of Iowa State University shows in an experiment which examines the effects of venting anger and aggression. The experiment consisted of three groups: two variable groups and a control group. All three groups were exposed to harsh critiques of an essay written earlier by them. The first group vented their anger of the critic on a punching bag. The second also punched a bag, but were told to think about physical fitness instead of the critic. The third group was told to relax. The first group showed the most aggressive tendencies afterward, while the third displayed a more calm behavior. “For reducing anger and aggression, the worst possible advice to give people is to tell them to tell them to imagine their provocateur’s face on a pillow or punching bag as they wallop it . . . such advice will only make people angrier and more aggressive.” (Bushman) The aggravated tirades of comedian Bill Hicks is a prime example of the main point of what frustration and anger can cause. I claim that the rants of Bill Hicks actually feed into his act because of his expressive nature leads to a more entertaining act.

The marketing bit of Bill Hicks demonstrates evils of the marketing industry. In the beginning, he repeatedly tells marketers to commit suicide and insults them with a malevolent intent. He begins in a sarcastic manner, but claims to be utterly serious. “This is not a joke, you could be like, ‘There’s gonna be a joke coming.’ There’s no fucking joke coming, you are Satan Spawn, kill yourself.” (dailymotion.com) He demonstrates that marketing is the root of all evil and the only solution to that problem to “kill yourself.” Despite being a joke, his demeanor displays his hatred for marketing.

Bill Hicks can make the audience laugh with the suggested suicide but denies the fact of being the set being a joke. Much like the first group in the experiment, he responded to his frustrations with marketing with more aggression in his set. The first group in the experiment had to respond to harsh critiques by punching a bag, while thinking about the critic. With a target in mind, Hicks went off on a rant which fed into speech. His tone in speech started off as a jest but he soon kept on getting more belligerent with his insults and his demand of suicide as time went on. He knew that being more aggressive would be productive in making people laugh because he knew the bigger the statements, the bigger the response. The more serious he seemed, the more the audience believed in hatred and was entertained by it.

Bill Hicks shifts focus from the marketers themselves to the philosophy of advirtising, according to himself. According to him, advertisers must put a dollar amount on everything and must put everything in a market. To demonstrate this, he impersonates a marketer who responds to everything that Hicks said by relating what he said to some type of dollar such as: the trapped dollar, the anger dollar, or the frustrated dollar. The marketer thinks that Bill Hicks is only trying to associate himself to a certain type of dollar to get more fans and money. “I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now, ‘Oh, you know what Bill’s doing? He’s going for that anti-marketing dollar, that’s a good market. He’s very smart.’ ” (dailymotion.com) The quote demonstrates that marketers have a one track mind that is focused on money which causes them to take advantage over one’s feelings.

During the middle segment of the bit, Bill Hicks distracts himself by not directly focusing on marketers. He goes from straight forward insults to a frustrated complaint. There is a similarity between the second group of the Bushman experiment and this part because like stated above; this is not an example of direct anger. In the experiment, the participants