Without a doubt, drugs are the most successful consumer product ever created. They have a drug for absolutely everything nowadays. Sometimes they don't work in the way that they are intended; sometimes you take a pill to thin out your blood, and suddenly your shiny pale scalp starts spitting out hair. Tell your doctor, so he can tell the manufacturer, and then... well then they get the marketing guys on it.

Modern magicks. But the primary reason for their success is good marketing. For a long time, they couldn't advertise prescription drugs on television. They changed the law (have you noticed?). The world of over the counter drugs is completely different. Lower doses, more sugar, and the full benefit of some of the greatest advertisers that the world has ever created. Movie stars, celebrity athletes, and even cartoons have pitched in to the effort to create public demand for these products.

All the while, illicit drugs are able to achieve similar success without the benefit of that sort of saturation of marketing. Compared to the tremendous market penetration of legal pharmaceuticals, illegal drugs may only look like a cottage industry. But as Burma Shave and Wall Drugs proved, you can't stop a good marketing idea. Large companies often learn a lot from small ones. Sometimes, small companies learn something, and then become big.

The movie industry has finally found a way to make peer pressure work for them. The clean or "politically correct" term is "bandwagoning". These days you might overhear a conversation like this:

"Hey, do you remember that really cool part at the end?"

"No. I haven't seen that movie."

"What? You've got to be kidding me! No way!"

Then the shaming really starts. They're not talking about the greatest movie ever made; but as long as it's recent, and fits within their demographic, the formula still works. This could be two Sci-Fi geeks talking about the latest space opera. Or two teenage girls talking about a new teen comedy. It doesn't really matter.

Of course, there is a lot more to drugs than peer pressure. But Hollywood has yet to create an addictive film, which also gets people really, really high. But peer pressure works very well on social, hierarchical creatures, such as we. And everybody in show biz does drugs (well, the executives and writers do, anyway).

Hollywood knows that peer pressure works. And like any idea that works once, Hollywood can be counted on to run it into the ground. How else can we explain the fact that there have been four "Batman" movies? This also explains why almost every movie that comes out has a surprise ending (you can't talk to your friends about it unless you've seen it).

How does bandwagoning work? Here's an example: You smoke a lot of pot. That's how you meet people. They are your friends. Then, one day, you quit. Your friends aren't much fun to hang around with anymore (don't worry, they say the same thing about you). You don't have anything in common with them, and besides, you're sick of giving them rides home when you're the only one who's sober. You avoid them. You become terribly lonely, because you have trouble making new friends, because that's why you started smoking pot in the first place.

In a few years the conversation printed above will probably sound more like this:

"Do you remember that scene in the bar, what that one girl third from the left was wearing?"

"No. I don't remember. I only saw that movie one time."

"What? Just one time? You've got to be kidding me!"

BANG! You're ostracized, just like that.

You like movies. You see them when you have the time... but most of the time, you're just not in the mood. You'd rather sit in your apartment and wait until they come out on cable, than drag your ass to a movie theater and deal with all the crap that goes along with actually going out in public. And you'll miss out. You'll miss all those great movie references that your friends make. It's too bad. They're really funny, and they never get old!

Your geek friends will want to talk to you and share their deepest feelings about the latest summer sci-fi blockbuster, but you won't be able to respond in kind. Your friends with girlfriends will want to talk to you about how horrible romantic comedies are, thereby addressing their own emotional ambivalence towards their significant others, and you'll be unable to sympathize. You will seem cold and distant, uncaring towards their concerns.

Buy the tickets. Not those cheap matinee ones either. Buy the tickets or be prepared to say good-bye. Say good- bye to the friends that once loved you.

-B. C. Silvia