I’m not hip. Let’s be honest–when it comes to being “in” or “cool” I just don’t cut it. It’s the way I’ve always been, and I’m fine with it. I’d like to be left alone in my uncoolness, peacefully sitting in my apartment watching Doctor Who and eating Craisins. But now, society has started to turn against me, and this is where I draw the line.
That’s right–I’m calling you out, society. Oh, I see you back there hiding behind NASCAR races and some old episodes of “Temptation Island.” Get out here and stand up for yourself. Things have gone too far, and you have to leave me alone.
Let me paint a picture for you: I’m driving along in my car, going nowhere special. The radio is on, and I’m sitting in traffic just sort’ve spacing out and listening off and on to the music. Suddenly, a new song comes on, and it sounds kinda cool. It’s a ballad, and I admit, I’m a sucker for a good ballad. It’s a guy with a pretty good voice, and it’s a kinda bluesy song:
Don’t forget me baby, I’ll soon be back where I belong,
It’s not hard to find me, where I have gone,
But in this world, between my wife and my career,
I’ve got an awful case of diarrhea!
What?! NO! I was getting into an AD!
Yes, advertsing has gone too far, and I’ve had enough. Sure, I’m moderately embarrassed that I was starting to like a song that was about Immodium AD, but it only served to emphasize the real problem I’ve got with society. I mean, in this world where we have captured sunsets with poems, moments of history in paintings, lives in the pages of books is it really appropriate to have a tender love ballad about an intestinal problem?
Imagine what would happen if our soceity was truly like the strange bizarro society that exists in the world of TV and radio advertising. In the normal world, when I go to work, I talk about what my co-workers did this weekend, how the local football team is doing, or maybe the latest politician scandal/kidnapping/rape. In the advertising world, I would come into the office and announce that I was not having the usual number of bowel movements. And that I was impotent.
Advertising has a warped sense of the emotion of a moment, too. There’s a great ad out now about life insurance in which a middle-aged couple is cheerfully discussing a friend of theirs:
WIFE: Hey, remember Lenny?
HUSBAND: Oh yeah, how is he doing?
WIFE: He’s dead.
HUSBAND: Really? I wonder if he had Mutual of Omaha life insurance?
WIFE: I hope so. Have some cake.
And so on. Ok, so maybe they didn’t know Lenny that well, but in comparison with this next example, the reaction just doesn’t quite seem so appropriate:
BILL (Sobbing) Oh God, Oh God, my life is ruined.
TED: Hey, Bill. What’s got you down?
BILL: (Still sobbing.) I’ve got ring around the collar!
TED: (Shakes head sadly and hands Bill a gun.) There’s really only one thing to do, then.
BILL: (Looks at Ted.) What about using Tide?
TED: (Puts his hand on Bill’s shoulder.) I’m afraid it’s far too late for that.
(Tide graphic comes up and there is a gunshot in the background.)
Of course, it must be tough for most characters in commercials to get a grip on reality given the worlds they live in. In a recent Sprint commercial, a wife is upset with her husband because he misheard her on the phone and brought Charro home for the weekend. If you were married to this person, wouldn’t your first question be, “How the hell did my husband manage to get Charro to come to our home?” Yet…no one has a problem with these things. Why is it people in commercials unquestioningly accept miniature Arsenio Halls standing on phone booths, little Ringo Starrs in tiny boats in your toilet, or dead actors dancing with vacuums in your living room? Yet these same people are rendered speechless at the thought of having to eat four bowls of Raisin Bran to get the same nutrition in one bowel of Total?
So watch yourself, society. On behalf of all the other tragically un-hip people such as myself, I am putting you on notice: if I get caught out by another laxative ad posing as legitimate music, then I’m coming after you. And I’m bringing the executives at Fox TV. And we’re gonna bring you down.