Touch of Modern Gluttony

Back in the 1980s- a decade pretty much dedicated to the art of Conspicuous Consumption- there was this awesome store in the local mall called The Sharper Image which sold all kinds of nifty gadgets which all had one thing in common.  Everything in the store was really cool, and really pointless (or, at least, way ahead of it's time- which meant that the concept was there but the tech had not yet quite caught up yet.  For example, The Sharper Image was the first place I saw Wireless Headphones, Hoverboards, and Robot Vacuums, and I'm sure they all worked equally badly.)

It was, essentially, a place for poor kids like me to ogle fancy Toys for Adults, and for upper-class adults to buy toys for themselves.

Well, that particular The Sharper Image has gone the way of almost every other store at that mall, vanished off the face of the Earth to be replaced by a massive Filene's Basement, though I was a bit surprised to learn that the company itself does actually exist somewhere (perhaps as an internet-only entity.)  About fifteen years ago I walked into my first Brookstone's and thought "hey, The Sharper Image is back with a new name," because Brookstone's does pretty much cater to the same audience, but it wasn't as cool probably because I wasn't 18 years old anymore.

Now there's Touch of Modern, where Stupid Rich People Who Have No Change For the Guy with the Bell can purchase electronic coasters which allow coffee cups to hover above the desk or floating Death Star models or super-nifty-SciFi Swiss Army knives or belts which don't quite work like the belts that the plebs buy at JC Penny.  It isn't Toys for Adults- you can get vintage GI Joes at Ebay and video games at Walmart.  These are showy pieces of pointless junk which serve exactly one purpose- to let everyone else know that you can afford to buy showy pieces of pointless junk.  As in "Don't think for one minute that I saved for three years or took out a second mortgage to buy that Lexus in the driveway.  I've got money coming out of my ears!"

So for that rich guy in your life who has everything- here's something they don't have, because they didn't know it existed.  Because there's no reason for it to exist, except that there will always be people out there desperate to throw money around in the most ostentatious manner imaginable.  And because it's 2018 they don't even have to drive to the mall to do it.

I wasn't fooled, Peloton

See, the gag here is that you thought the guy was getting up at 5 AM to work his butt off on the Peloton bike so he could stay in good shape for his wife.  Sure, you thought it was kind of weird, since pretty much every other Peloton bike commercial you ever saw featured a twentysomething woman with the body of a triathelete/Sports Illustrated model getting up before dawn to sweat for an hour while being shouted at by another hot woman on a screen.  Each of those ads ended with the woman toweling herself off before being greeted by two little kids and- eventually- the shlub she sold herself to who is finally getting HIS ass out of bed and who has no need for a Peloton bike himself because hey, Bank Account.

It's all made right at the end, as it's revealed that, yep, this is actually HER Christmas present and he was just taking it for a test ride, like that guy who put a whole 900 miles on the brand new Jaguar last year before handing it over to HIS trophy wife.  This time the Grateful To Be Reminded That She Could Be In Better Shape spouse doesn't notice the slightly damp seat or any other signs that this gift has been broken in- she's too busy gushing with delight at the modern equivalent of a new washing matchine as an appropriate holiday present.

"Hey look, honey- a Peloton Bike, just for you!  Now you can cancel those classes at the gym you clearly hated even though they were pretty much the only time you ever left the house to take a trip that didn't involve buying groceries or cleaning products!  Now show how much you appreciate me by taking a pound off before making me breakfast!"

"Oh and BTW, don't bother looking out into the driveway- there's no Lexus wrapped in a ribbon for you again.  How many years in a row does that make?"

Roll the dice at Kay Jewelers?

I get that this is supposed to be super-cute and not at all trite or manipulative or drowning in BS g-d forbid.  It's supposed to be just adorable that this guy not only decides he has to ask this little kid's permission before marrying his mom, but feels compelled to show the kid the ring in a way which, if you watch this without sound, looks as though he's offering it to the kid and not to the mom.

Because I'm a commercial curmudgeon, I'm going to point out a few obvious sticking points which make this ad kind of screwed up and certainly nothing that any guy interested in marrying a woman with a young child should take inspiration from.

First, I'm more than a little squicked at the concept of an adult man asking a male child for permission to marry an adult woman, as if that adult woman has no real say in the matter.  He even pushes the ring toward the kid like he's offering payment for his mom.  I guess it would be worse if we saw the guy asking the woman's FATHER for permission to marry her, but this really isn't much better.

Hey, buddy?  This is the son of the woman you want to marry, not her master or her boss.  Did she send you into his room to do this?  I get that you're going to be a family and maybe there's even something a little sweet in getting the little boy ready for his mother to be married again, but how about a little conference with all three of you in the same room in which it's explained to the kid what is GOING to happen?  Because, after all....

Second, this guy has pretty much set this up as the kid's decision to make.  I guess he's been around for a while and he knows the kid very well, and the look on the little boy's face suggests that he really likes the guy and OF COURSE he's going to say "yes," but what if he doesn't?  Is this a decision that ought to be made by a kid who can't get to sleep without his favorite stuffed Porg toy?  What if he kind of still likes it being him and Mom and isn't quite ready to share her with this guy or anyone else?  What if he says "maybe in a few years?"  I don't imagine that the guy is really going to take a negative reaction as the signal to take the ring back to Kay Jewelers and renew his membership with Match.com.  It's a lot more likely that the kid will be informed that umm, sorry, we were just trying to be cutesy and nice by asking, but we're getting married anyway, suck it up, buddy.

The horror of Lexus December to Remember Ads is underway.....

All year, very wealthy people who live in fabulously large suburban McMansions with their trophy wives/husbands and trophy families will enjoy the Lexus someone in that house received as a Christmas present last December.

You know, that Lexus that was ostentatiously wrapped in a giant red bow to let everyone in the neighborhood know that yes, the family living in that ridiculous house is just as obnoxiously rich and willing to be conspicuous with it's consumption habits as you suspected they were.  And that the horrendous performance of the stock market in 2018 did nothing to take the shine off their perfect lives.

All year, this family will enjoy the privileges of owning a Lexus SUV- like parking it right next to the stands at a sporting event instead of in the lot with the lesser cars, for example.  They'll remember that Fourth of July when for some reason they took it to the beach so the kids could run around it holding sparklers like it was the center of a religious ceremony.  Or that time someone was nice enough to invite them to an outdoor wedding so the guests could appreciate their car all day and not just as they arrived and departed.

Not shown: the daily trips to the car wash for the Luxury Detailing which allowed the family LookAtMeMobile to keep that Just Off The Showroom Floor shine.

Want a year like this?  Then take advantage of Lexus' December to Remember offers and get yourself and your family one of these giant middle fingers to decency which make garages superfluous because after all, what is the point of owning a Lexus if you can't remind people you own a Lexus 24/7?

Toyota Jan Presents Holiday Nightmare Fuel

When is this woman's fifteen minutes of career as Toyota's Stupid Spokeschoad going to be over already?  I mean, Toyota isn't going to pull a Progressive on us and keep this woman on contract until she looks like a fat, pale old vampire, are they? 

I was looking for the ad where Jan is descending a staircase in front of a wall festooned with about 200 framed photos, 99 percent of which are....Toyotas....before we find ourselves in the Toyota showroom, suggesting that Jan actually lives above the shop that is the love of her life.  Haven't found that one yet, but man it's weird. 

Anyway, Toyota thinks that we want to see NINE Jans singing to use for a few seconds, probably because Toyota has long since stopped caring to find out what we really want, which is for Jan to just go away already.  Oh, and I'm guessing Toyota thinks that this will remind us of The Brady Bunch,* which will tweak some nostalgia impulse and....make us want to go out and buy a Japanese car?  Huh?

*One commenter was indeed reminded of The Brady Bunch when he saw this ad.  And felt compelled to let us know for Reasons.  So congratulations, Toyota, you managed to accomplish...umm, something.

Another Ancestry.com rant

I guess the only reason why anyone would be interested in visiting The Phillipines or eating Spanish food or experimenting with Lithuanian cooking would be if they discovered that they can trace their ancestry back to these places?

Let's cut to the chase, shall we?  It's time to be painfully blunt about all of this DNA test nonsense.  They aren't about learning more about your background or appreciating the hidden diversity of the population.  They are about further indulging the navel-gazing Upper Middle Class with a new toy they can purchase with the money that seems to be forever burning a whole in it's pocket.

Just look at the people in these ads.  They aren't all white, but they ARE all obviously well-off financially and they all carry this obnoxious level of smug piety while absolutely oozing liberal suburban "values."  They all adore everyone and "don't see" color or sexual differences and loudly condemn racism every chance they get, slapping "We Love Our Muslim Neighbors" on their front yards (which almost universally exist in neighborhoods with zero Muslim neighbors.)  They are way, way above the concepts of bigotry and intolerance.

And yet, they are also obsessed with their own bloodlines and convinced that DNA is Destiny.  How else can we explain the fact that they not only went through the effort to send a vial of spit to Utah along with $59, $99 or whatever (as if the amount matters to these people) but also instantly respond to the results by seeking out cheap, surface-level ways to advertise their newfound "roots?"  Kelly Ripa reacts to discovering that she's 24% Italian by spitting out catchphrases in that language as the cameraman and her loving cultists follow her around a bakery.  The nobodies in this ad simply MUST visit the Home of their Ancestors or at the very least learn to cook some of the stuff they had to eat before they escaped to America (if I find out that I'm 24% Mississippian, does that mean I should learn how to prepare chicken-fried steak with greens fried in lard, or can I just visit The Golden Corrall after church every Sunday?) 

So you tell me- how does "embracing diversity and recognizing that we are all part of a rich tapestry of cultures" jibe with "I need to find out what percentage Lithuanian I am so I can adopt a new diet and jet off on a vacation to visit places that have no actual meaning to me but which I intend to look at teary-eyed and wistfully for the camera?"  How does any of this "you are what your blood says you are" get us any closer to breaking down tribalism?  Seems to me that as these kits get cheaper and more and more of us learn exactly what percentage Albanian Orthodox we are, the level of race-and-origin obsession is just going to become deeper and more dividing. 

But hey, at least these bored, pretentious, bloodine-obsessed twits have something to talk about at the next dinner party beyond the next farmer's market and how Tolerant they are.

"God Friended Me." He's right behind Justin Bieber in Twitter followers, too

As usual, G-d as portrayed by television producers has all the time in the world to f--k around with Upper Middle Class people in highly advanced Western societies.  Now he's on Facebook, suggesting that G-d hasn't been keeping up with social media trends lately.  If he was better informed, he'd know that Facebook is kind of old school and he'd be doing his communicating through Twitter or SnapChat, not Facebook, which is so Your Mother's Social Media.

Meanwhile, that kid sitting by a river in Kenya waiting for the worm that is boring a hole through his eye to leave him blind before he reaches his teen years- well, sorry, kid, but G-d is too busy contacting pretty people in the Upper 10% tax bracket to help you out right now.  Too busy making friend suggestions to those people, too.  Maybe if you got yourself an iPhone and Verizon you'd rate a little assistance.  Sucks to be you, but that's how G-d rolls.

According to American television producers, of course.