Saturday, August 14, 2010
It Says "don't forget to breathe, and there's drool running down your chin"
This commercial would work as a parody. Because it's clearly NOT a parody, it's just another episode in the natural progression of the cell phone from luxury to convenience to More Essential Than Your Lungs.
Everyone in this ad has settled comfortably into a life of consulting their phones for all of life's answers. Where do I turn now? I'll ask my phone. What should I eat for dinner? I'll check my phone. What would the person sitting next to me- across the fucking table from me- like to do next? I'll check my phone.
Let's all spend our entire "lives" staring at a little glowing screen, afraid to move without getting the OK signal from some electronic brain we'll never meet, but would probably have a more fulfilling relationship with than any of those icky humans who insist on interrupting our phone time every day. Oh, and let's start really early, too- wouldn't it be great if YOUR kid didn't wake you up in the middle of the night because she thought that there was a monster in her bedroom? Wouldn't it be great if she could just call a stranger and get comfort there?
What the hell is the matter with us? How did it come to this? I have a cell phone. I use it to call people, and occasionally text. I don't ask it questions. I don't use it to download videos, or directions. I don't subscribe to twitter accounts because I can't imagine wanting constant updates of anyone's life. I think it goes without saying that I don't Tweet.
I don't use my phone to check out restaurants before I go to dinner, to buy or change plane or train reservations, or to see which amusement park rides have the shorter lines. Somehow, I manage to get to where I want to go without checking my phone every fifteen seconds. If these commercials bear any resemblance to reality, I'm in the minority.
Because it sure seems as if we are raising a bunch of pumpkin-headed, helpless, social misfits who think that life is all about the battery-powered security blanket they can't put the fuck down. I just wonder what relationships these idiots are going to forge with actual people, what kind of basic skills will never be developed because they've been told for years that The Phone Knows All, and how long they will be able to bear to listen to that marble rattling around their empty skulls during those fleeting moments when they have No Coverage.
Is this supposed to be funny, or inspire anyone to buy phones? I think it's just depressing. What a sad, pathetic, self-absorbed pile of putrid rubbish we are becoming, thanks to crap like this. And to think, only a few short decades ago, someone called television our vast wasteland. That person could never have imagined the kind of brain rot offered by today's super-fast, Do Everything But Burp You cellular technology.
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Have you seen the Virgin Mobile commercial where a woman is on her cell phone WHILE GIVING BIRTH?! The doctor holds up the baby, and she says "This is so cool!" -- but she's looking at the cell phone, not the kid. Oh, yeah, that's hilarious Virgin Mobile. Something we really want to aspire to. Good job.
ReplyDeleteI pretty much loathe all cell phone commercials. There's one with the CEO of Sprint making a condescending reference to people who use cell phones "just to talk." Yeah, asshole, like me. I have enough brain cells to function without consulting my cell phone. I wish the girl in the commercial walking down the sidewalk, eyes glued to her "smart phone,"texting away, would step into the path of a bus.
ReplyDeleteThere's another downside; most of the time, they both take too damned long to kill the end user. Sure, you sometimes see fast, fast extinction but generally it takes decades to remove the drips from the gene pool.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I hate more than cell phone commercials is people who emulate them. I actually see people in real life who seem incapable of putting down their phones for two seconds to have a conversation with a real, present, person. I especially loathe alleged "adults" who ignore their kids to yap and text away- I hope the children of these choads learn the lesson well, and ignore their parents when they are elderly and would like a little attention.
ReplyDeleteCzaerana,
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty much what happens to people in British road safety PSAs; the odd thing is that they use the tag-line "Think!" when discussing people who don't much use their brains.