Early sources, such as this classic book
https://www.amazon.com/Image-Guide-Pseudo-Events-America/dp/...
frame public relations and marketing folk as cynical manipulators who don't fall for the illusions they create.
The post-modern environment has had about 60 years to develop since that book was written and I think the culture has deteriorated and I believe that, today, the image makers really do live in the "the matrix" they've created and have trouble distinguishing it from reality. (I think of how Valmont in Dangerous Liaisons really fell for his victim Madame de Tourvel.)
My contacts with local business people and people who sell ads for radio and newspapers have convinced me that prices for advertising were too high for a long time because the people who buy advertising get gratification from hearing their name on the radio and the people who advertise won an auction because they get more gratification from hearing their name on the radio more than anyone else.
Years ago somebody who was an "influencer" would try to appear authentic (not an "influencer") but today authentic people will try to look inauthentic ("i pretend to be an influencer even though I don't get paid") to get credibility.
People under this spell will run ads in situations when they clearly shouldn't and they'll be astonishingly resistant to anyone who tries to talk sense into them.
(Your desktop usage does make income for Microsoft since your OEM bought Windows for you. If they annoy you enough you might switch to Linux, MacOS, etc. Unfortunately your OEM probably wants to wreck the value of a $2000 computer they sold you by selling $2 worth of annoying ads.)
Calling attention to Neil Postman’s __Amusing Ourselves to Death__ is the usual rejoinder to a statement like this. But, Daniel J. Boorstin’s __The Image__[1][2], published in 1962, just about perfectly presages the outcomes of 2016 – 2017 vis-à-vis social media; I cannot commend it enough.
(N.B television (especially with news shows) is also both a form of, and antecedent to what we call social media.)
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Image-Guide-Pseudo-Events-America/dp/...
[2] http://www.transparencynow.com/boor.htm, (Disclaimer: I don't know anything about this site, having just discovered it a few seconds ago, but it provides a nice summary of the book).
This book from the early 1960s
https://www.amazon.com/Image-Guide-Pseudo-Events-America/dp/...
made the case that ordinary politicians would be made obsolete by celebrities, the question today is “Why did it take so long?”. In 2016 Trump showed stupendous charisma, energy and ambition. He doesn’t come across the way anymore. I think the age issue weighs more heavily on Biden because a certain voter might want to vote for a candidate that seems more vital or “full of life” and if you are mentally comparing 2024 Biden with 2016 Trump, Biden fails the comparison. If you really watch Trump now he is a grumpy old man who is fighting yesterday’s battles.