With "Friends" like these...

A few years ago, when I didn't know what Facebook was, I heard two students in the hallway comparing the number of friends each had. One said he had 250 friends. The other said he had 290, and had added fifteen in the last few days. I was impressed, and I stopped to ask if they had been to camp recently, or some community activity, or a family reunion, to find themselves blessed with so many friends.

They explained to me that they were referring go their Facebook "Friends," and in fact had never met roughly 90 percent of them. In other words, they were referring to photographs which represented numbers, which in turn indicated nothing more intimate than the willingness of a lot of people to add their names to lists kept by strangers, as long as the "favor" could be reciprocated. These "friends" did not actually know them or ever even talk to them. They certainly could not be called upon for a ride to the airport, or a shoulder to cry on. They were "friends" in a sense which seemed quite alien and sad to me.

Now, there's another way to "value your friends." If you refer them to your cable service, they represent one hundred dollars each. That's how much money you can get for each friend who signs up for DirectTV, as long as they are "friendly" enough to reference your name and membership number when they do so. The next time you look at someone you think is your friend, just imagine them as a big, ugly one hundred dollar bill. But only ten of them- there is a limit to this offer, after all. just like there is a limit to friendship- right?

Well, I suppose this was inevitable. First, friends are just names and faces willing to use you to pad their Facebook total. Now, they represent money. Because after all, how much do you REALLY value Facebook Friend #346, compared to a hundred bucks?

As far as I'm concerned, "valuing" your friends by seeing them as representing an opportunity to make money is no less cynical and crass as using them to make your list of Facebook "Friends" artificially larger.

Remember Society? Wasn't that fun, while it lasted?

The person who wrote this crud clearly hates dogs.

Another pet peeve (no pun intended) of mine: Personification in advertising. I really hate it because I love animals. So when advertisers make animals act as stunningly stupid as the dumbest, most witless human beings, it really ticks me off, because I know better.

Dogs and cats do disgusting things that we don't need to get into here. I get that. But if I thought for one minute that dogs would ever react to the smell of "Beggin Strips" like this, I would instantly lose all respect for dogs, everywhere. Sniffing each other's butts- I get it. Eating grass- I get it. Marking territory- hey, it's genetically programmed in. I get it. Going insane over the smell of a snack and repeating the name of that snack over and over again in your mind? That level of insulting idiocy is reserved for human beings, sorry.

There's also the little message here that when a dog jumps on you, it's not showing love or loyalty. In fact, it's not thinking of you at all. Nope- it's just thinking of BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON!!!! Because the smell of BACON compels dogs to lose control, abandon their territory, and race to the source as quickly as their four legs can carry them. How, exactly, dogs naturally know what bacon is, let alone naturally crave it*, I don't pretend to understand.

What I do know is, according to this commercial, if you open up a bag of Beggin Strips, you'll have every freaking dog in the Free World rushing to your door to get at it. And this is a good thing?

*I've often wondered this about cats and fish, too. Do cats really crave fish? Is that just instinctive, because it seems to me that the only way domesticated house cats would ever consume fish is if it were served to them by a human. Do they really like fish more than other meat, or is it a Mice and Cheese-style myth? Do I just have too much time on my hands, or what?

And if you try to spin off that Pigeon, someone's going to get hurt, AFLAC

Remember when the AFLAC duck was kind of a cute concept? It was back in 2000- that's right, during the CLINTON ADMINISTRATION- that the duck made it's first appearance, trying to remind a guy sitting on a park bench what the name of that company that provides him and his coworkers supplemental insurance was called. It was mildly amusing and maybe even a little bit clever- "AFLAC" sounds sort of like a duck's quack. Decent idea. Well done, AFLAC.

Thirty commercials later (seriously- according to Wikipedia, there have been more than thirty separate commercials featuring the duck) it's not a decent idea anymore. It's not at all cute. It's--- hmm, what's that phrase I'm trying to think of? The one that applies to the Geico lizard and those god-awful, Also Amusing for a Commercial or Two But Please Stop Now Cavemen? Oh yeah- PLAYED.

But even "played" doesn't really describe my reaction to this latest AFLAC commercial. I mean, "played" can be used to describe Ray Ray Johnson ("you can call me Ray, or you can call me....") back in the 70s (or was it the 80s?) "Played" also fits when discussing Punch Dub Days, "Here We Go" Bud Lite Commercials, and those stunningly unfunny fake "press conferences" featuring the choads who shout questions about beer to long-retired NFL coaches. It's a real understatement to describe the continued presence of a computer-generated duck quacking "AFLAC" when put in that context, isn't it? (And don't get me started on the break-dancing. Just don't.)

We are on the verge of another season of NFL football, which means the insurance commercials will be coming at us in larger quantities than usual. Is it too much to ask, AFLAC, that you dump the duck and come up with a new concept sometime before the Patriots win the Superbowl in February? It would be much appreciated.

Because this duck thing....seriously. Enough, already.

Oh, and Bud Lite? Enough with the "press conferences," too. Never clever. Not even once.

The Age of Innocence

Every once in a while, I like to draw attention to a "vintage" ad, if only to remind us of a simpler time, when the world was young and all things seemed possible. You know, before it all went to hell in a hand basket.

This commercial is for a brand new product called "America Online." It allows one to easily access something called "the Internet," which involves using a Personal Computer to "communicate" with other Personal Computers (or "PCs") for the purposes of gathering information, buying stuff, and "even sending an email" through the "World Wide Web."

And what could one DO with "America Online?" Even in 1995, the possibilities seemed endless. The guy in this commercial has shown up to report that his planned day at the ballpark has been sabotaged by the harsh realities of life and it's pain in the butt responsibilities. He has to order flowers for his mother, book plane tickets for the family trip next week (more about this in a moment) and take his daughter to the library "to look up dinosaurs." Incredibly, ALL of these things can now be done with a few points and clicks, IF you have America Online!

(My first computer didn't come with a modem, or a hard drive, or even a disk drive. It was a Commodore 64 which used cartridges that had to be jammed into the side of the keyboard. And my first Online program wasn't America Online, it was something called Prodigy. I can still remember accessing Prodigy and walking away from the computer for an hour or so while the "home page" slooooooooooowly appeared on the screen. I can also remember getting a $300 phone bill the first month I had it. Good thing AOL's introductory offer was for "Ten Free Hours" of service per month, right? I mean, who would ever need more than Ten Hours of Internet access per month?)

Ok, first- the booking of plane tickets. Can you really do this with only one week's notice? What does that cost? Second- instead of taking his daughter to the library "to look up dinosaurs," he's going to download a few pages on dinosaurs from Compton's Online Encyclopedia- really?? Way to pass on your awesome ethical standards, buddy. Not to mention, way to land your daughter an F on her dinosaur report. And all because it's more important to go to a damn ball game. Third- ordering flowers? That can be done on the phone, just like it could be back in 1995, in about thirty freaking seconds. Oh, but this is also in the Age Before Cell Phones, which means this poor man can't do it while on his way to the ball game. So we can see his dilemma, can't we?

Anyway, this America Online commercial shows how awesome being "connected" to the "internet" (or the "World Wide Web," if that's something different) really is- you don't have to invest any time to do things like buy plane tickets or order flowers or take your daughter to the freaking library. All that stuff can get done in a few seconds- I assume this guy stopped by his house on the way to the game to hand his daughter the watered-down, generic crap about "dinosaurs." I wonder if she was disappointed that she wasn't going to spend an afternoon with dad at the library. I guess it doesn't matter, though, does it?

This commercial also shows us why Al Gore invented the internet* in the first place- so we could send each other "e-mails" and take care of time-consuming chores with a point and a click. And play Fantasy Football with our fellow losers. Not to post videos of ourselves doing every stupid thing imaginable, not to access x-rated content from the privacy of our own homes, and not to publish pointless, whiny, fairly obvious observations of commercials. But of course, we had to go abuse it, just like we abuse all technology- the wheel, the toaster, the telephone, skateboards....

I mean, come on. YouTube? Facebook? The Cloud? Sigh. We just can't have nice things, can we?

*I'm well aware that Al Gore never claimed to have invented the internet, that this is just a slander created by the Bush 2000 campaign and perpetrated by the Gore-hating Media. I just liked the line.

Money Better Left Unspent

Do you ever get the impression that McDonalds only makes commercials because they feel, as a huge conglomerate which has held the lion's share of the Fast Food Industry in the palm of it's hand for decades, they are kind of obligated to, and not because they actually NEED to?

I mean, the only explanation for the absolutely bottom of the barrel, zero inspiration "themes" found in McDonalds ads is that the company's execs, watching commercials for Burger King, Wendy's, and KFC, decided that even though they have no evidence that any amount of advertising will impact the apparently unlimited supply of taste-deprived fatsos who will waddle in on any given day to give their arteries another hit, they ought to throw some money into thirty-second spots anyway. So they went out and found an agency which relied on eight-year olds for inspiration and starving college students for "actors." The result is the most consistently banal, insulting, and downright stupid commercials to be found since the end of Punch Dub Days.

I mean, there is simply no way any of these ads are ever market-tested. Heck, there's precious little evidence that they are even pre-screened before acceptance and scheduling for air time. Pretty much everything in TV land labeled "McDonalds" looks like something we'd expect to receive if Ed Wood were handed $20,000 to produce thirty seconds of Something, Anything, No Questions Asked- a messy, disconnected jumble of nothing which Kind Of Sort Of Not Really relates to the "food" being sold at McDonalds. Featuring Pretty People of Appropriately Diverse Ethnicity (check out the white guys in both ads- Separated at Birth, or What?) Which ends with the Golden Arches taking over the screen at the precise moment that the viewer is thinking "um....what the hell was that all about?"

Hey, McDonalds, let me try to save you a little money (though I am well aware that you can spare it.) There is nobody in the United States who isn't aware of your restaurant's existence- after all, there are only about 14 million franchises scattered about all fifty states and the District of Columbia. I mean, not even Starbucks is as ubiquitous. If there is a population of people out there who are not patronizing McDonald's, it's not because we were unaware that you offer deep-fried chicken parts with dipping sauce "which make lips even smackier," this dope explains to his disciples (I like the "here we go" comment from one of them- apparently, a speech about the cruddy non-food they are about to eat is expected of this guy. Yet, they still hang out with him..)

Or because...well, honestly, I can't even begin to understand the point of the Annoyingly Made For Each Other Idiots Engaged in the "you go first" Ultimate TV Cliche Ad. No, it's simply because we don't think this junk tastes good, and we KNOW it's not good for us. No ads will change that.

And the people who already go to McDonalds? As long as there is a dollar menu and a lack of nutrition classes in High School, they'll keep coming, regardless of whether you buy ad time or not. So please, stop. Because these....these are just bad. Even compared to other ads. And that's saying a LOT.

I guess the O'Jays just needed the money?

Right away, it is revealed that the idiots at Coors Lite have never, EVER utilized public transportation. The MOMENT the train stops, the announcer comes on the intercom to announce in clear, non-muffled, non-garbled, non-accented English that the riders "will experience a thirty-minute delay."

Not ten minutes of silence followed by a barely-intelligible, static-filled "we will be moving momentarily." Not a "thank you for your patience" followed by a silent request for MORE patience. Nope, an INSTANT declaration of EXACTLY how long this train filled with twenty-something models will be stuck in one place.

As a regular customer on the DC/MD/VA Metrorail, I can only respond "Yeah, RIGHT!!"

The Very Beautiful People, who are clearly not used to being inconvenienced in the slightest, quickly express dismay at this interruption in their plans to Go Someplace Very Important And Look Beautiful There. (Tell me you don't want to just slap the Very Beautiful and Very Put Out Woman who mysteriously has not been offered a freaking SEAT on this train- she looks as though she is QUITE sure the freaking universe revolves around her and the other Very Beautiful People with her exaggerated gesture of exasperation- and how DARE a mere mechanical issue get in the way of her Very Important Schedule??)

Ah, but let's not forget that these are, after all, Very Beautiful People. They are not nameless, faceless slobs like you or me (well, me.) A Male Very Beautiful Person applies a bottle cap to the wall of the train, instantly transforming what was once merely the preferred vehicle of the poor and very poor alike into the Coors Lite PartyMobile, to the great gratification of the other Very Beautiful People, who mysteriously know exactly which Very Beautiful Person to thank for remembering that he is, after all, a Very Beautiful Person, and Very Beautiful People simply do not live by the same laws of physics and nature that the rest of us trolls (well, me, anyway) do. When I'm stuck on a train in the middle of the summer, I'm going to sit and sweat and stew, and mentally pound the skulls of the slack-jawed jackasses with their MP3 players and pointless, noise-leaking ear buds as I slowly die of thirst. Not THESE people.

So the train is suddenly filled with ice cold beer and very happy passengers, and the Very Beautiful, Stunningly Impatient Woman naturally hooks up with the Magic Bringer of Beer (he knows how to push her buttons, clearly.) Hey, someone's got to pay for all this, right? I mean, wouldn't it be incredibly unfair if the Very Beautiful Impatient Woman was indifferent to the Magic Beer Guy with the requisite three-day beard stubble, gelled hair and open shirt?

I'd love to see an SNL parody of this ad. For one thing, are there really no people on this train who don't drink beer? Alcoholics? Children? How about people who still have work to do- meetings, presentations, sales, all that stuff I understand that people who are not teachers have to do to make money? Also, why does the exterior of the train have to undergo any transformation at all- beer cannot be served in a standard metro car? Are the all-but-universal No Alcohol On Public Transportation laws suspended when a Magic Bottle Cap is used to provide beer for the Very Beautiful People? Or does Coors Lite simply not count as "alcohol?" ( I could almost buy this.)

A while back, I kept meaning to do a post on the original "Love Train" (man, it's so sad that a song released in the 1970s calling for World Peace could be hijacked and used to sell crappy beer, isn't it?) commercial, which featured a train loaded with beer crashing through a football stadium as snowflakes provided magical relief to the fans in the stands. The use of stock footage from NFL films, complete with people long dead or at least unaware that their participation (or even observation) of a freaking football game would someday be used to peddle alcohol really, really rubbed me the wrong way. At least the current versions of the whole "Love Train" (please stop) campaign use model/actors and not innocent bystanders, but still....I really can't comprehend wanting to guzzle light beer on a crowded, stalled, hot train with a bunch of strangers, and I'm really bored with the "Beer makes every situation not only tolerable, but Awesome" attitude of these commercials.

But then, that's only been the message of beer commercials since the 1960s. We've got to be moving that train along soon, right?

The Class War is Over. I Lost.

"Sam begged and pleaded, so I sent him to camp."

Ok, this just sounds bad: Sam, an alleged grown-up, "begged and pleaded" to be "sent" to Rock and Roll Band Camp. Because he really really wanted to, and his Mommy-errr, wife-- controls the household budget.

Except-- does she? "We accumulated so many Thank You Points on our Citi Card..." Ugh, really? How do we go about accumulating "points?" Why, by spending money using the credit card, of course. So these people have spend SO MUCH FREAKING MONEY that they've accumulated enough "Thank You" points (as in, "Thank You for having Zero Willpower and Attempting to Single-Handedly Keep the American Economy from Crashing by Using your Credit Card to buy Everything Your Pathetic, Materialistic Little Hearts Desire" to transport Sam from one Fantasy- the one he lives in every day with his Mother/Spouse, in which using a credit card in place of cash is a GOOD idea- to another Fantasy, in which Sam is a Rock and Roll Band Member.

We can SO relate with these people, can't we?

It seems increasingly clear that advertisers view the United States as a nation consisting of two distinct classes of people. The first group is made up of desperate, paycheck-to-paycheck working stiffs who use CashStop, Payday Loans, Rapid Refunds, and other Just Trying To Get To Next Week "services." If these people ever manage to score in the lottery, or find themselves legatees in some relative's estate, there are Annuity Brokers out there to exchange a small amount of money RIGHT NOW for the large amount of dough they could expect to have parceled out to them over a number of years. They "line jump" at Cici's and take the family to Golden Corral for baby-back ribs and seafood "for around ten bucks."

The second group is made up of blissfully wealthy hedge fund managers and their families. These people live in suburban palaces and give each other ribbon-clad Lexuses for Christmas. They have 72-inch High Definition televisions in every room and sixteen internet-connected devices and spend most of their time watching violent movies and "gaming." Oh, and they take vacations and go to Fantasy Camps and buy fancy dresses and Shea Stadium seats with their "thank you" points. Oh, and for some mysterious reason, they feed their kids Kraft Mac 'n Cheese.

I don't belong to either of these groups (though my paycheck makes me more likely to hit Denny's than Ruth's Chris,) which I guess means that I'm not recognized as being an Actual American worth pandering to by the Advertising World. I suppose I should feel grateful, but that would not be like me at all. Instead, I feel like a stranger in a strange land. Without even the comfort of Thank You Points.

Thanks for Nothing, Citi.