PHOTOGRAPH: LAURA RICHARDSON
While on a train recently, I took notice of the adverts in the carriage: a tech firm explaining that I can now access my work emails anywhere; a print company showing a perfect image of a couple Eskimo kissing; and a bank telling me I can finally follow my dreams with their higher interest savings rate.
In the past, I wouldn’t have given these adverts a second thought but, nonetheless, their messages would have made their way into my psyche, designed to encourage me to buy the things that would help me create what my life ‘should’ look like. How did these subtle communications make me feel? Worried. The kind of worry that eats away at you, until you wake up in the middle of the night, panicked and thinking: ‘Is this it?’ Another ad read, ‘Chin up’ – consoling us that, despite our stressful commute and boring job, tonight we could forget our dreadful life during an episode of The Walking Dead. You have to laugh.