Pharmaceutical Satire Site Believed

Artist Justine Cooper has created a media campaign for the fictitious drug, Havidol, which she invented to combat Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder (DSACDAD), which she also invented... and people want to know if they have the disease and where they can find the drug!

To her credit, Cooper's fake site looks very real and her humor is intentionally subtle; it's hard to determine whether the campaign is being believed by a "stupid" public or because the artist succeeded. Of course, it's a little of both, but it's not really fair to judge the people who have fallen for the campaign.

The entire point is to mock the pharmaceutical ad campaigns which have become so prominent since 1997. I abhor the idea that pharmaceutical companies are even allowed to do this, much less that they do so in such a reckless, unchecked, haphazard manner. And, since I came across the site through a news piece which explained it before I saw it, I don't know how I would have taken the site if I'd come across it on my own. I would have dismissed it as an ad, but you get my point.

This is the power of art and especially satirical work. And this is a field of advertising, and an industry, which deserves to be lampooned. Perhaps it is only this way that we can hope to effect change, since The Powers That Be refuse to force such industries to behave ethically, and I have never understood that about the legal system:

If there is no legal incentive for people -- and, most specifically, businesses -- to behave ethically, then what the hell are the laws even for? In fact, they are usually designed and applied to reinforce unethical behavior -- it's a "blame the victim" system, vis a vis caveat emperor -- in a "should have known what you were getting into," "you'll know better next time," "everybody gets what they deserve/you make your own fate" sort of way. 

Since so many large and powerful factions benefit from these lax, backward laws, we can't expect the system to change on its own; the Powers That Be are unethical, so we can't expect them to force others to be ethical -- and they have no incentive to do so, either (quite the opposite: they face a paycut, if they do!).

This is an admittedly cynical outlook and may not be the case in every situation, but Art always has played an important role in affecting change and fighting corruption, and in recent years -- thanks directly to the over-commercialization of the field and the industries which drive it, which very carefully monitor what the artists are allowed to "say" -- we've managed not to "rock the boat," and it's long past time we rocked the living hell out of that thing!

Kudos to Ms. Cooper.