I heart Bangkok’s metro system!

Okay, so maybe it only covers a small part of the sprawling city, and maybe it does little to alleviate the notorious traffic jams, but I heart Bangkok’s metro system. Where else can you get such a seamless advertising experience? It’s not the fact that virtually all the vertical space in the stations and cars is covered with billboards. No, that’s become such a part of life that only a Martian would think it even the slightest bit remarkable. Nor is it the flatscreen TVs sprinkled throughout the platforms playing an endlessly looped series of advertisements. Or the fact that the same advertising program is playing on giant screen TVs that are actually outside the platform, directly opposite the space where waiting commuters are required to queue. It’s not even that once you finally get in the car, six more flatscreen TVs are playing the same program. No, what distinguishes Bangkok from sadly amateurish efforts in places like Tokyo or Seoul, is the way all of the spaces of Bangkok’s metro system, from the platform to the car, are equipped with Bose speaker systems so that the advertisements are not just visual, but also aural. Perhaps it’s just a generous effort to make sure even Bangkok’s sight-challenged commuters can participate equally in our consumer lifestyle, but the result is that there’s really no way to take the metro in Bangkok without being subjected to a continuous stream of advertising. Nothing, that is, short of closing your eyes, putting your fingers in your ears, and screaming over and over again “It’s NOT 1984, it’s NOT 1984.” But that would be silly. On several levels.