Researchers in Germany published a study this month on something near and dear to American hearts: mindless eating in front of glowing screens.

Once upon a time not so long ago, there was an idea: that some things in this world should be able to exist free from the influence of money—that these things should be done because of their own intrinsic value. You would be forgiven for scoffing at the notion that this idea was ever taken seriously at all.

Gone are the days when a "brand" was just some bullshit made up by bullshit consultants who charged a ridiculous amount of money for bullshit. From now on, brands are people—just like you.

As the October 1 enrollment date for the Affordable Care Act creeps closer each day, one had to expect some feeble pushback from conservatives upset that a black liberal passed a healthcare bill they actually kind of like. But did you expect Uncle Sam with a creepy rictus all up in your uterus and armed with a speculum? Probably not.

Between permanently kidnapping The Roots and producing the god damn endless popular cover song medleys that every god damn asshole wants to share with you on Facebook, you might have thought that mop-headed giggler Jimmy Fallon's show had reached Peak Irksomeness. Wrong!

John and Jane Doe, residents of 123 Main Street, Anytown, USA, are just your perfectly average American consumers: board-certified gastroenterologists, who will only purchase "Gluten-Free" food items, because they have scientifically confirmed their own celiac sensitivity with extensive medical testing.

Do you know what yesterday was? September 9. Also, the start of the Christmas advertising season. Fuck you, Kmart.

Ehh... no. [Via Copyranter]

Happy Labor Day!

Publicis and Omnicom, two staggeringly huge conglomerates of advertising and PR agencies, are combining into one even more staggeringly huge conglomerate, as we march towards a bright future in which one ad company sells all ads to one media company, which controls all entertainment.

Hot Pockets is "reinventing" its brand to emphasize the "quality of the ingredients." As you laugh about that, consider the fact that consumers bought $640 million worth of Hot Pockets in the past year.

For 80 years, it's been illegal for hedge funds to advertise to the public, due to various SEC regulations. Now, those regulations are changing. Hedge funds will soon be able to advertise! *Eyes you up and down* Probably not to you, though.

If the school bell has finally sounded for the final time and the kids are gleefully preparing for several long, hot months of family road trips and spilled frozen dairy dessert substances, it can only mean one thing: time to start your back-to-school shopping now. Now. There is no respite in this world of gloom.

Kmart's Twitter account is being flooded with angry tweets from customers demanding an explanation for the blatantly racist ad it released this week.

You may click here to read a news story about the results of a hot dog eating contest between advertising agency employees.

Late last week, Facebook announced that it would be reworking the set of various formats it offers to advertisers, to "simplify" its ad offerings. Among the changes, Ad Age reported, will be the end of a product called "sponsored stories" (although a Facebook executive said the stories would survive "as an idea"). Wired wrote that the changes will make it so that "every ad is automatically retrofitted with a social component."

Like most things in Brazil, prostitution is legal.

A new Swiffer advertisement depicting WWII icon Rosie the Riveter as a house-cleaning homemaker has, shockingly, rubbed people the wrong way.

A nice Cheerios advertisement whose only discernible difference from other Cheerios commercials is that it depicts an interracial family was forced to disable its YouTube comments section today after it became inundated with virulent racism.

Ricky Schroder, who played the little Aryan kid on Silver Spoons, is now a professional propagandist working on behalf of the U.S. military-industrial complex, just as you would have guessed.