Until somewhat recently, I hadn’t been watching much TV or at least not their commercials. But there are a few somewhat frightening trends going on that worry me. If you really pay attention, it might concern you too.
Next time you watch TV (without skipping commercials), take note of each time you see a commercial for: Medicines, Sex-Related Products, and Environmentalist Advertising.
For my entire life, I’ve known that anything that strangers try to cram into my eyes and ears as truthful information was always either a blatant lie or a half-truth with an agenda. Lately I’m becoming more and more troubled by the things that are being crammed.
The Age of Over-Medication
It’s nothing new that pharmaceutical companies are some of the largest, most evil things on the planet, but there is some legitimately ridiculous shit being marketed these days, each with a more ridiculous sounding name than the last.
There is a pill that makes it so women have 4 periods a year. Does that sound like a good idea to anyone who is actually concerned with that person’s health? I’d love it as much as any other guy to be able to avoid 75% of the PMS I would normally encounter and everything else that comes with it, but think about how it affects the body. It just doesn’t seem like a great idea unless you’re hoping to file a lawsuit in 15 years when they find out you’re sterile and your vag won’t stop bleeding. Not to mention the mental side effects it would have. How many men have had a girlfriend that does the pregnancy panic every couple months? Well imagine not knowing if she’d missed her period until 3 months later. To cap this all off, the side effects are hilarious: “While you get 4 periods a year, you’re also more likely to have bleeding or spotting between periods. This can be slight to a flow like a regular period and should decrease over time.” So basically, you won’t have your period… but you’ll still bleed normally. Because the inconvenience of periods is not the blood… it’s the microscopic egg.
It’s amazing that it is even legal to sell drugs that have side effects that include: Stroke, Heart Attack, Death. But the fact that they can advertise them on TV is even more appalling.
Then take into account the reasons why people take these medications. There are anti-depressants that have side effects of burning urination, loose bowels, vomiting, internal discomfort, and suicidal impulses! Yea I feel much more positive about my life now that I have fluids gushing out of every orifice painfully! Boner pills like Viagra and Cialis have Abdominal Pain, Flu, and Urinary Tract Infections as side effects! Ooooh sexy! Sleep aids like Lunesta and Ambien can cause you to pretty much be sleepy all day.
Buttsecks Bait
One of my favorite new commercials that has come out recently is done by Nivea body wash. It makes fun of Axe and the other soap commercials that try to boast that their product’s stench will get you laid. The commercial highlights short sound clips of Axe-wearers like benched high school football players, a wannabe Italian loverboy with a stupid-looking sports car from 1986, and a nerdy Asian kid who exclaims “This will not increase my ability to mate!” I always love looking in the most pathetic men at the supermarket’s carts to see Axe products. If you have to ask… I wear Old Spice 😉 Hairy manly stuff.
Anyway, my point is delightfully portrayed in that commercial. Sex has always been an advertising gold mine, but now it is getting to the point that I can’t even find a single male-targeted commercial without some form of female attraction being involved in the use of the product. Every shaving commercial has a hot woman touching the dude’s face. There are even fast food commercials for it!
It’s bad enough that it’s hard to tell if you’re hitting on a woman or a cyborg when you’re at a bar, but the stench of all the cologne and other oils these retarded men wear makes me just want to stay home and meet girls through World of WarCraft or Xbox Live. That is, until they get the smell adapter for the headsets…
All I’m asking for in this area is a little creativity. We see a million plastic, emaciated blonds on TV every day and drool over their cleavage all the same… but at least do something interesting with it. I’m getting oversexed in my everyday life so much that I can barely tell when I’m turned on anymore.
Green is Overrated
My favorite color since my first memories has been perverted into something that has become so horrific, that it makes me consider changing color affiliations. Count how many commercials you see mentioning “green” principles and environmentalism and it will astound you. As much as I care about having a nice planet to live on, this is getting shoved down my throat more noticeably than ever, which draws even environmentalism into question.
Generally, when you see a large company like Dow Chemical or Toyota advertise “green” principles, it means they have done something awful. Either they have contributed negatively to the environment (what big corporation hasn’t?) and are trying to help their image, or have contributed a tiny bit positively towards it and want to tell everyone about it. Smaller companies just join in the PR opportunity as best they can, but the ones that film the high budget National Geographic-looking commercials are worrisome as hell.
If you listen to the language they use and the imagery they present, it is extremely propagandist. It reminds me of religious or political propaganda or being peer-pressured into trying drugs or alcohol. I may hate Hippies, Communists, and PETA like any good Libertarian, but I also want a nice climate and clean air and water. I think everyone does. But this approach to marketing the well-being of our planet in this way makes me cringe and pull back from that ideal.
If you were going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to put a 30 second message out to everyone in America, what would you expect as a return on that investment? I just can’t see these companies as doing this for charity.
Conclusion
I guess my point is to question what you see and hear. I know everyone says that, but sometimes we just sit like zombies at the TV and let the messages hit us right between the eyes. Or, like me, let the TV run in the background while working on something. Subconscious messages affect us even if we aren’t paying 100% attention.
Even if we don’t agree with them or run out and buy the product after we see it, we’re still allowing this information to pass into our brains passively. Let yourself get pissed about what they’re trying to sell us. Let yourself be outraged about how stupid they think we are. Maybe you won’t make the stupid commercials stop, but shutting yourself off to the messages in your own mind will keep you from becoming numb to it. I’d rather be a grumpy old man than a zombie taking Cialis.
