E-trade's continued pursuit of the lowest common denominator

I blame the apparently very large population of utter morons out there who think that the idea of babies being manipulated into endorsing products through trick camera work and dubbed voices is "funny" for this ad, which looks almost exactly like each and every one of the other 247 E-trade ads produced over the past three years.

As I've mentioned in a previous post discussing this vile series, what makes the E-trade baby bit so truly noxious is that it is obviously not geared toward people who are seriously interested in making heavy investments in preparation for a comfortable future. Because people like that have functioning brain cells, and are therefore not really susceptible to this kind of Hammer to the Face stupidity. (While we are at it, they probably aren't all that impressed with the Walk Around With Styrofoam Numbers Under Your Arm to Show Everyone How Rich You Plan To Be When You Retire bit presented by ING, either.) No, the people who think this crud is at all funny are far more likely to invest THEIR money in lottery tickets than in stocks. They don't download the E-trade App, they stand in line down at the 7-11 trading cash for scratch-off tickets. For these dopes, the E-trade commercials are for entertainment purposes only.

And what makes THIS particular commercial especially repulsive? Well, it's the second one that I've seen which isn't satisfied with exploiting innocent, clueless little kids for the benefit of an online trading service, but instead insists on portraying those kids as having the brains and sex drives of adults. Last year, we were treated to a whiny, jealous female baby referring to another as a "Milkaholic" (someone out there thought that was funny. I don't want to meet you. You are really sad.) Now, we've got a male baby visiting the hospital nursery to "speed date." (The same people who liked "Milkaholic" think this idea is funny, too. Unless they've developed a shred of taste, or maturity, since then. Don't know, don't care.)

Because I have an active, functioning, ADULT brain, I don't think that the idea of babies "speed dating" is funny. I don't think that any of these babies has one damn thing to tell me about how to invest my money. What I DO think is that the real-life parents of these kids should be thrown into a dungeon and left there until they agree to stop trying to use their offspring as meal tickets. And that E-trade find another angle. Because this one is about as fresh as "so 29 seconds ago," the Geico Gekko, and the AFLAC duck. And about as funny, too.