Is it clever marketing or stupid people?

Mixture of both. The guy who wrote fight club has a pretty good take on it .. great writer

I'm going to be kind, it's gullible people.

Not stupid people, ill educated people. When only advertisers understand rhetoric and mass psychology they will have an advantage over the mass of the people whose only education has been the passing of tests instead of the practice of debate and analysis.

It's all on people. Which is why I believe AI is going to blow things up. Generally speaking, "we're" not discerning, don't consider the source or their objectives and choose perception over reality. We're primed.

Is[i] what[/i] clever, etc. ?

Most people are [i]not [/i]stupid but many seem as if they were never taught or encouraged to learn and to think about what they are shown or told. So they will be at the mercy of those, such as advertising companies, who learn how to exploit ordinary human weaknesses.

The "cleverest" so-called marketing seems for the least useful, indeed most meretricious, goods or services; and aimed at people who can, but don't, think about the so-shallow advertisements and their own needs and wants.

So not stupidity at all, but not questioning. Often too, herd instinct; hence the common fear of not following "fashion" or "trends", or of failing to be part of the great "now-we-all".

Combine them together to make proffits

I'mma go out on a limb and say stupid people. Hahaha

Mostly stupid people.

I'll take two

Stupid people

Please clarify the proposition🤨

A multitude of things colliding. It's all interpretation

Stupid is as stupid does