For example, I now watch television almost exclusively on Netflix (it's eight bucks a month, people, get on board) or off my PVR (expensive hit at first, but I don't know how we lived before). This means that I no longer watch stuff just to fill time until what I really want to watch is on, and it also means that I view FAR less commercials. Those commercials that I do watch are usually in fast forward.
When I'm out of town, or not paying attention, or watching a live event that would be ruined if I waited to watch it, I see commercials like in the "olden days".
You know what's a super weird word? "Olden".
Television advertisements seem to all operate on the premise that the average viewer is a complete and utter moron, who has no idea how to accomplish any task of any kind at any time without total guidance and a lot of product purchasing.
I don't know who this poor sap John is, but someone thinks he's pretty stupid.
The people who write commercials also seem to think that we soil ourselves really, really regularly, in all sorts of fairly colourful ways. For example, this:
That's not what happens.
Or this:
Get it? His tide to go pen leaked. And made him clean.
Or this:
Ever wonder where his hat went? Yeah, me too.
It all makes me want to act precisely as the people in the ads do- like doorknobs who are saved from their otherwise horrible life by some magical product that solves everything.
I WILL spill beet juice all over myself, wander around a trade show and appear to be a murderer (have you seen that one?? The guy is wearing a butcher apron and the resolve bimbos wash him clean, he claims he's covered in beet juice but I'm pretty sure that they have just concealed important evidence).
I WILL be embarrassed by my heaving, exposed bosom and regain my dignity by wearing a tiny scrap of fabric instead of a properly fitting shirt.
PS. This looks like a set of tiny thong underwear for men.
I WILL wander into a room full of rotting corpses and exclaim that in fact, it DOES smell like a spring breeze! If I was walking though a field next to a slaughterhouse on a hot day while carrying a bag of untreated manure!
Who would DO this? Put a strange object up to your nose and inhale deeply...sounds like a recipe for chloroform-induced coma.
There are a lot of claims out there about the power of advertising. I tend to think that generally speaking, commercials that pander to me like I'm a brainless sack of crap make me AVOID the products they are hawking. I know that I've seen ads that have made me boycott brands entirely.
I never bought any of this garbage before, but I certainly won't be tempted given the marketing strategies of this particular company.
Anyway, I just think it would be funny if we acted like the consumers in ads do...fighting over dishwasher detergent...yelling at the KFC guy...touching other people's laundry on the street.... But I have to say that my life energy is better spent getting right to the quality programming I have prerecorded for my viewing pleasure.
Moral of this story:
On the right: Abercrombie CEO. He says ugly people shouldn't wear his clothes. Fat people neither.
It is truly outstanding that by chance, in the wonderful world of google searching, I managed to sneak in two LOR related memes in a post about television commercials. Nice one, interwebs.
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