Probably one of the best campaign ads I've ever seen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdpKIjpaBU8

eh, seen better advertisements. But books are awesome anyhow. :P

I don't get how people can downvote that video, is it for fun or they really dislike the message of reading books?
btw Great video, thanks for sharing :)

Well obviously there will always be certain percentage of people that don't like some ads, or music videos, or whatnot. I don't mind Nickelback songs but I generally find popular Family Guy clips wretchedly unfunny (unless the clips are from 2003 or so).

Books are overrated. I'm not saying books are garbage or the people who enjoy reading them are stupid or something like that but so many people view books like they are something superior to movies and video games. And books are definitely not superior to movies and video games when it comes to telling a story or educating people etc. They are inferior to movies and video games when it comes to telling a story or educating people. Video games allow people to interact with the video game...you can't interact with the book. Movies have audio and visuals plus words to tell a tale. A book is just words and your imagination and imagination can't really beat real audio and visuals in front of you unless you are on something. :) The only reason a lot of books are often better than a lot of movies is because, most of these movies are only like 2 hours max and dumb downed for the average person. So of course, a book that takes several days to read is going to be better than a 2 hour movie dumb down for the average person...unless the book really sucks. A lot of people also think more = better and that is not true. Is it possible for a book to be so good, it beats all the movies and video games out there? Of course, anything is possible. It's also possible that our entire universe exists inside a hamster like creature's ass.

I could waste my time arguing Literary Theory concepts with you, but it would be just that: a waste of time for both of us. I truly feel sorry for you if you think books are inferior to movies and video games. They're not. Books aren't easy, they don't show you everything you're required by the author to "see", books are a symbiosis -- a contract, if you will -- between the author and the reader, you are required to imagine and visualize what the book tells you in your mind, thus making the book as much yours as it is of the person who wrote it. Movies and video games are easy, they're not superior or inferior to literature, just different mediums of art and entertainment, but they're definitely easier than books, as they literally show you everything their makers want you to see and watch, leaving very little to the imagination of the viewer/gamer to play with. With books, the reader has to concoct the worlds, settings and characters in their own mind, which makes reading a more personal and rich experience.

By the way, that clichéd notion that "a picture is worth a thousand words" is crap. A picture of a man is but a representation of a particular individual, there's not much to it. The word 'man', on the other hand, holds a multitude of meanings and interpretations, generates a lot of mental pictures in each one of us. So, if anything, a word is worth a thousand pictures, more than the other way around.

I still don't understand you. When I read something, my mind does come up with this and that but everything I concoct isn't as good as what can be seen and heard from a good movie. For me, seeing and hearing some thing is so much more real to me. And the more real something is, the more I can enjoy it.... What I see with my imagination, seems so fake. And I agree that reading a book is a more personal experience than watching a movie or playing a video game but so what? More personal but less real...

Amen to that. Oh, there are most definitely great movies to be seen, but, unfortunately, most based on books just don't measure up. There's only so much a director can display in the limited time he has to make a movie that a lot of intricacies and depth to characters have to be cut short and in some unlucky cases get actually butchered because of it.

Who says, a movie can't be as long as a book?

A movie can be as long as a book...

A movie can offer all that a book can offer you except the freedom to use your imagination. And it's possible for a movie to let you have the freedom to use your imagination(just not as much freedom to use your imagination).

Because no one would have the time, will, or patience to watch an eight-hour long (or longer) movie? =P Funny thing, I find (quality) TV shows to be a much better medium for working off of established written fiction since they actually have the time to explore most everything, while delivering the story in manageable chunks.

A book can't be measured in time length. Different people read at different speeds. Books are meant to be enjoyed at the reader's own pace, sometimes browsing backwards to parts they've read before. There's no comparison whatsoever in terms of "time", unless you mean the time an actor takes to deliver their part of the script, and even then it's always subject to the interpretation of the actor, the director and the cameramen.

So people don't have the time, will or patience to watch an 8 hour long movie but they have the time, will or patience to read a book that will take them 5 or 6 days to finish?

A TV show is just a movie broken up into many parts shown on TV. :)

Yes, a TV show is a much better medium compared to books, in my opinion.

*shrug* I can thoroughly enjoy either medium.

That said, I love books! I really do. It's interesting to note that I didn't really actually get into reading for my own enjoyment until I was 15/16. I couldn't really be bothered with it before. I don't know or recall why that is.

Nothing wrong with loving books. It just bothers me that a lot of people who love books, put them on a golden pedestal and think movies, TV shows and video games are an inferior medium or an equal medium. Why? Because I have to deal with these kind of people often and every time they notice you don't do a lot of reading, they look at you like you are some uneducated retard or missing out on life...