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Bad Ads
Kara McDermott spotted trouble the moment she saw a Game Boy ad in a children's magazine. It showed a pair of skeletal hands holding the Game Boy. The caption suggested that once you start playing, you'll have so much fun you may forget to eat.

Kara thought it told kids they could get all the exercise they needed playing Game Boy. So she wrote a critique of the ad and entered it in the annual nationwide BadAd writing contest. She ended up winning first place in the middle-school division.

Now Kara notices bad ads all over the place. "It's amazing what advertisers do to try and get into our minds," she says. "I'm seeing things that I never saw before."

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