Brainwashing the masses to do what you want them to do is a tricky business, as Shelly observed last night. The subconscious mind is simple and extremely literal; you don’t want to brainwash people with messages that require any sort of high-order cognitive processing, and if your subliminal messages require interpretation, God knows what kind of weird results you’ll get once the subconscious mind finishes with your message!

For example:

Good brainwashing message: “You want to go to the island.” Simple, direct, no real interpretation necessary.

Bad brainwashing message: “You want to be a good consumer.” Danger, Will Robinson! You’re leaving it up to the subconscious to decide what a ‘good consumer’ is and how to be one. There ain’t no telling what kind of behaviors you’re going to get from this one.

And for the love of God, never, ever include metaphor, analogy, or similie in your brainwashing messages! *shudders*

Here ends the public service message of the day.