A(nother) Harry Potter Story
by Chyna Rose
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsburry/Schoolastic Press, and Warner Brothers Pictures. My Hero Academia belongs to Hirokoshi Kohei, Weekly Shounen Jump, Viz Media, Studio Bones, and Funimation. This work was written for the fun of it and the challenge offered up by NaNoWriMo; no money has or will be made off of it.
“When did truth in advertising stop being a thing?” Draco asked out of the blue. He'd been idly flipping through channels looking for something - anything really - worth watching when a commercial had caught his attention (but not in a good way).
“Hmm?” Percy answered back, slightly distracted by the incident report he had been working on.
"You know. The thing where if you come out and explicitly say that your product does a thing in an ad, it better well do that thing? When did that stop?" Draco continued.
"I would have to check, but I don't believe that those laws were ever repealed or amended." Percy interjected thoughtfully as he walked into the room.
“Well you sure as hell wouldn’t know it.” Draco snorted in derision. He stopped his endless channel surfing to point with the remote to an exceedingly obnoxious long commercial, “Take this one for example.”
Percy merely raised an expectant eyebrow, waiting for Draco to continue. It was clear from Draco’s expression that he was gearing up to go into one of his epic rants, much to the entertainment of those around him.
“Effortless weight loss. No need to exercise or change your eating habits; just take our magic serum every day and watch the pounds melt away. Never you mind how that works, just revel in the fact that it does. Don’t believe us? Why not ask one of our satisfied ‘customers’ (who are in no way paid actors). See this woman (and we swear it’s the same woman in both photos despite the fact that they don’t really look anything alike beyond skin and hair color)? She lost thirty eight pounds over the course of only thirty days - that’s over a pound a day mind you - and went from somewhere clearly over three hundred and fifty pounds to just a bit over one hundred thanks to us. And what about things like colloidal silver? It’s been well established that silver has antibacterial properties, so why not drink a suspension of it to cure a host of ‘scary’ illnesses like cancer, AIDS, diabetes, and herpes as well as prevent your kid from quirklessness. Never mind that none of that’s actually been proven or that antibacterial products don’t work on viruses, autoimmune conditions, metabolic diseases, abnormal cell growth, genetic conditions... you know, anything that isn’t a bacterial infection. And why is it that parents who are sooo terrified of all those scary chemicals in vaccines to the point where they categorically refuse to vaccinate their kids are not only perfectly fine with this but actively endorse its use?” Draco ranted, getting all wound up.
“There’s always been commercials like that though.Even back in the pre-quirk days when the laws were first enacted” Percy pointed out.
“Yeah, but didn’t they used to be subtler about it. You know, implying but never coming out and saying that if you buy their car, or beer, or what have you all these good things that we’re showing you in our ads will happen to you.” Draco countered.
“Actually, not all of them. Just as you have commercials blatantly advertising outrageous claims about their products along with subtler ones selling a lifestyle that their products - and only their products - just oh so happen to fall neatly into now, you had the same promotional strategies back then. Often on the same sort of product come to think of it. I think I remember seeing something about a weight loss suit that allowed you to lose weight just by wearing it on a pre-quirk era commercial compilation video.” Percy said.
“You watch that sort of thing?” Draco asked, getting sidetracked from their conversation. While he knew that Percy wasn’t some fun hating automaton like his brother Ron often joked about (Percy actually had a number of interests and hobbies outside his work), Draco wouldn’t have pegged as being into pop culture like that.
“I see no reason not to.” Percy said with a shrug, “I actually found it to be an interesting look into the culture of that time, and the commentary that went with it was highly entertaining.”
“Ok. So the problem’s been going on longer than a thought. But that still doesn’t answer my question.” Draco said in an attempt to get the conversation on track. While Percy’s personal web video watching habits handed him a whole new subject to tease Percy about later - preferably by dropping a hint about them in front of Ron who would no doubt get onto his brother about them thus giving Draco days if not weeks of entertainment, Draco was still a bit peeved (and maybe a bit bored because there really wasn’t anything worth watching no matter how many times he cycled through the channels. You’d think with hundreds of channels catering to dozens of interests, there would be something worth watching), “You would think that if advertisers had to be truthful in what they claimed - or at the very least, subtle and indirect with their lies - that these people would actually get in trouble.”
“Who said they haven’t?” Percy shot back.
“I haven’t heard anything about it, and their stupid ads are still playing.” Draco replied.
“Just because you haven’t heard about it happening, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen. All it means is that you simply haven’t been privy to that information.” Percy lectured lightly, “Most companies are heavily invested in their public image since that informs the opinions people have of them, and more importantly for the companies, how likely they will be to do business with them. The more negative attention a company gets - especially when it comes to the exposure of unethical business practices, which false advertising would fall under - the less trust the public will have in them and the more likely that lack of trust would manifest in people choosing one of their competitors over them.
“Therefore companies will invest heavily in suppressing things that would reflect badly on them like fines, lawsuits, or even negative reviews. This is not always as successful as the companies wish it would be. First of all, thanks to the advent of the internet and social media, it is nigh on impossible to completely suppress all traces of those kinds of things. Some things, such as lawsuits, are part of the public domain (even if the specific details of a given suit are covered by confidentiality agreements). Second, information no matter the form or the content posted on the internet is notoriously difficult to fully erase. No matter if it's a blog post, a video, a picture posted on a message board... someone somewhere has, for whatever reason, copied and cross posted it - even if only to a private archive. Third, just because a company has an internet presence it doesn't mean that they're internet savvy. It’s easy to overlook even a major site or platform simply because you were unaware it existed - and just because it feels like everyone and their mother knows that, for example, Herotube is a site that exists it doesn’t mean that everyone actually has. As hard as it is for us to imagine it given how central the technology is to our lives, some people are honestly unaware of just what’s available. After all, if all you use the internet for is e-mail and maybe reading the occasional news article why would you need to know about Herotube.
“Lastly, there’s the issue of the suppression attempt itself. It doesn’t actually matter what you’re trying to suppress; the moment that people find out that you're trying to suppress something they’re not only going to lose faith in you but do their best to find out what you’re trying to suppress. And if they find it - or even think that they’ve found it, then the natural thing is to share what they’ve found with everyone else. People in general have an oppositional reaction to being told that it’s forbidden to know something - which is essentially what information suppression does. So now you’re dealing with bad publicity not only from what you did but with the fact that you tried to hide it.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Draco conceded. He didn’t like it, but Percy was right in a way. While he was one of the first to publicly celebrate his successes, he considered each and everyone of his failures (and there were depressingly many of those - especially Before) as private little shames that wouldn’t be able to withstand being dragged out into the light of day (even if it was more him that wouldn’t be able to stand the exposure than what he’d done or not done as the case may be). It wasn’t much of a stretch to think that other people would feel the exact same way (and wasn’t that a sign of how far he’d grown over the years. Eleven year old him had had a hard time putting himself in other people’s positions. Oh, he knew and even on some level understood that other people had thought and felt differently than him at any given time but empathy - true empathy was a completely different thing altogether. It was, in retrospect, kind of sad when he thought of it).
The thought of what was happening still rankled though. Whether or not these deceptive companies were getting away with their lying ads, the fact that they were able to keep doing it over and over to the point where more and more of them were starting to do the same just rubbed the wrong way. And knowing that technically what they were doing was illegal - not to mention unethical, but was never addressed in any significant way... What was the point of even having a law if it wasn’t going to (consistantly) be enforced. Why not just take it off the books?
“Hey guys” Ron said poking his head in from the (suspiciously slightly smoking) kitchen, “Instead of cooking, what do you think about doing take out tonight?”