Bill Hicks on "Marketing" (Explicit Language)
Why Hacker News recommends it
Invoked in threads about ads, tracking and marketing as the go-to comedic indictment of advertising, often as a joke or a parallel.
What it is
A two-minute clip of comedian Bill Hicks doing his routine on marketing and advertising, with explicit language. He mocks marketers and urges them to get out of the business.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2019 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Recommends interroboink · 2023-06 · on “YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers”
If you haven't seen it, you might like this Bill Hicks standup routine: [this video] "If anyone here is in advertising or marketing ... kill yourself" (:
Cites nemo44x · 2023-04 · on “The first game ‘Easter eggs’ were an act of corporate rebellion”
Reminds me the Bill Hicks routine on marketing people. First telling them to kill themselves and then suggesting the marketing people are thinking “he’s going for that anti-marketing dollar, there’s a lot of money in that”, etc. The machine will always extract whatever is useful and profitable. It co-opts everything to make itself bigger and bigger. [this video]
Cites imiric · 2024-12 · on “Sorry, Mad Men. The Ad Revolution Is Here”
I can't figure out what the point of this article is, but let's talk about advertising and AI, since that seems to be a primary focus. Advertisers using generative AI to create ad campaigns is a diversion at best. The only use of AI advertisers are interested in is how they can embed ads directly in the personal AI assistants the world is starting to use. If a conversational AI model can be manipulated to casually mention a specific brand in its output at precisely the right moment, then that's the most accurate form of targeting, with the highest chance of engagement. AI assistants are trusted much more than any search engine, or any media we consume, so it's only a matter of time until we
Cites sgnelson · 2025-08 · on “Sunny days are warm: why LinkedIn rewards mediocrity”
Just going to throw this out there: [this video] I do not fully endorse the message. However, there is very much some truth in there.
Cites genewitch · 2025-09 · on “I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse”
Explicit (seriously, explicit) Bill Hicks: [this video] We've known that advertising is "filling the world with bile and garbage" for decades.