The Cult of YouTube. or The Infinite Ways to Lose your Money Online

I don't expect anyone to watch this hour-long commercial for Making Money By Getting Other People to Give You Their Money for No Return video, any more than I expect you to watch any commercial- no matter how long- for the same service.  Ads for "opportunities" like these seem to make up 90% of YouTube's commercial content these days, and they are all pretty much the same:

1.  Self-confident, enthusiastic and almost exclusively Male twentysomething shoves his face into the camera and starts talking to us like he's a trusted friend - most of these ads start with the phrase "Hey Guys" presented in a "oh there you are, well as long as you've decided to drop in, let me tell you about" attitude.

2.  Spokeschoad proceeds to tell us about his collection of sportscars and bulging bank account while taking us on a walking tour of his mansion, never failing to mention that six months ago he was flipping burgers at McDonald's and living in his mom's basement.  Now he's got more money than he knows what to do with, it was Super Easy, and being the Awesome Human Being he is, he just can't WAIT to share his Secret with the rest of us.

3.  Spokeschoad then covers himself with a thin veneer of trustworthiness by warning us against those OTHER people who tell you that Working from Home or Flipping Houses will make you a millionaire overnight, we should totally avoid THOSE losers because they are scammers, it's NOT possible to become a millionaire overnight even with HIS Proven, Guaranteed System.  It takes six months.  Oh, and it takes a lot of work even while being Super Easy.

4.  Spokeschoad finally gets around to explaining how, by giving him just a little of the money you probably don't have, he'll show you how you can be Just Like Him with his sportscar collection, mansion and Oh Did I Mention The Fabulous Vacations I Take All The Time With My Hot Girlfriend? 

5.  The comment section is overrun with "testimonials" gushing about how SuperAwesomeAmazing this opportunity is, and how it's Not At All Like those other people who are just SCAMMERS.  And if you tried this system and lost money, it's because you Didn't Believe, Didn't Try Hard Enough and Just Didn't Want to Be Successful and how you're Looking For A Good Man to Blame (often that Good Man is God-Fearing, too, so you get double demerits for your slander.)

So go ahead and join everyone's favorite cult, the Church of Online Dumb, and get that career flipping houses or Mid-Level Marketing underway.  Or get your credit score into the 800s using this One Simple Trick.  Whatever, you'll be in that mansion with that sportscar in no time at all (model trophy girlfriend/wife included, just pay extra shipping and handling.)

This Geico Commercial isn't Progressive in the slightest

See, I'm pretty sure we are supposed to appreciate that this is yet another ad featuring a Mixed Race Yeah What Are You Going to Do About It couple, but seriously that is soooo 2018.  Mixed Race couple in a YouTube ad?  Um, yeah-- so?  How are you going to demonstrate how Woke you are next?  Gonna show us a man washing dishes or a woman wearing pants? 

Meanwhile, all I see is that two ugly people found eachother and are now a couple.  Seriously, I don't care about their skin color.  These people are UGLY. 

Oh, but wait-maybe THAT'S the super-progressive message of this ad:  Look, you don't have to be physically attractive to be in a stupid insurance ad!  You can be really, really unattractive and we'll still put you on tv because Deal With It America, This Is 2019!

What Justin Does with his Dr Scholls

Every day, Justin "chooses" to walk....um, because his crummy job as a tour guide kind of requires it.  Kind of like I "choose" to get up before 6 AM so I can get myself to school to teach before the first bell rings.  It's a choice, you see.

And at the end of the day, Justin chooses to take his little daughter to an upscale neighborhood they don't actually live in so she can practice riding her bike in safety.  Because I'm sorry, but tour guides don't live in neighborhoods like this.  There's probably just too much broken glass and garbage lying around in Justin's actual neighborhood.  Not to mention the crime.

Or wait....maybe Justin is actually a bond trader who likes to conduct tours through the city on the side because he's a People Person?  That's more plausible than the Tour Guide Who Lives in a Freaking Mansion on an Exclusive Suburban Street, anyway.

Monday.com is Procrastination brought into the 21st century

You can do your work, or you can find reasons not to do your work while pretending to be productive.  If you prefer the latter, Monday.com is perfect for you.

Sure, you've already sent an email giving everyone on "your team" their job assignments and deadlines.  But-- if that's all you need to do, you'll have to get to work on your own part of the workload.  You could make some coffee, or check your Facebook page, or make a snack, or watch something on YouTube, or tidy up your work area....but that's not especially productive.  Taking all the information that's already available and organizing it to an online calendar?  That sure LOOKS productive, and I bet it leaves you with the feeling that you've done something.  Sure, you fell farther behind in completing your assignment, but it's not like you weren't productive, check out this calendar you created!

Never mind that as soon as you finish filling out the totally unnecessary Monday.com calendar, it's inaccurate because you've spent time filling out that totally unnecessary Monday.com calendar- the important thing is that you were sitting at your desk typing, which means you were busy, which means you earned your paycheck, and now you've made everything easier by putting the schedule on this totally unnecessary Monday.com calendar.

And you didn't leave your desk to raid the snack drawer or finish off the coffee in the break room, so give yourself an extra pat on the back.

Bounty continues it's over-the-top reaction to spills ad campaign

Here's another one of those almost unbelievably stupid Bounty paper towel ads in which people freak out because their glowingly white, perfectly clean world is about to be slightly (and very temporarily) marred by a spill.

Seriously, what the hell is going on here?  This family reacts to the dropping of a dumpling* as if it's a crystal vase once owned by the Romanovs and passed down from great grandma's estate.  Good lord, people.  It's a dumpling.  Falling on a kitchen table.  Creating a slight stain.

So what's with the looks of existential horror all around?  The kid acts as if the last time he spilled something he was given a severe beating and a month in the Box of Shame.  And it sure seems as if we, the audience, are supposed to understand perfectly the Horror of Dropping a Piece of Food, just as in a previous commercial we were supposed to understand perfectly the Horror of Spilling an Ounce of Iced Coffee.

Well, maybe you do, but I don't.  We all know what paper towels are for and why we like to have them around, but--umm, Bounty?  You aren't going to convince us that they're right up there with fire extinguishers, and you aren't going to convince us that spills are anything more than...spills.  So please, stop trying.

*And I'm not even going to get into examining how the Magic Dumpling managed to skid/skip/bounce almost three feet across a table so that it could land in the mouth of a dog sitting across from the kid in exactly the right place to catch a morsel of food that had no business falling off a table in that spot.  I mean, what the hell?  Did that dumpling come with propellants that activated when it encountered a hard surface?  Because come on, there is this thing called physics.

Similasan: Why use medication when you can treat your allergies with...well, nothing?

So this woman was prescribed eye drops, but she "started worrying" about all the chemicals she was putting into her eyes....you know, at the recommendation of an actual licensed physician.  She doesn't tell us that her doctor "started worrying" or expressed any misgivings about the Actual Medication he had prescribed.  No, SHE just woke up one day and decided oh gosh maybe it's not a great idea to put "harsh chemicals" (what us normals call "Medicine") into her eyes.

More likely she was approached by a cousin or an old friend she hadn't seen in years but who now really really wanted to get acquainted and who Oh By The Way was dying to tell her about Herbalife.*  Or Essential Oils.  Or doTerra.  Or whatever.  And in fifteen minutes she became convinced that doctors are all CIA agents being paid off by Bayer and Beatrice Foods and the Illuminati to peddle mind control drugs and to Stop the Information from Getting Out that Nature Is All You Need to Heal.

So now instead of paying $12 a month for medication she used to pick up at the local pharmacy, she's paying four times as much for 2 ounces of sterilized water from Switzerland which is of course not covered by her Evil Big Pharma-controlled "health" insurance (more like "sick" insurance!  Those companies WANT YOU TO STAY SICK!)  which she can also find at the local pharmacy, in the "Natural Foods" section.  And feeling very Woke about it, I'm sure.  Stupid, but Woke.

*This actually happened to me, about a dozen years ago.  I got an email from an old High School friend I had not seen since the 80s who wanted to "catch up" at a local coffee shop.  Within three minutes of sitting down he was peddling some $40 per month Miracle Vitamin Regimen.  I declined to purchase.  Haven't heard from him since.   I doubt I'm missing much.

Meet the Averys. I hate them already

"These are the Averys, leaving their ridiculous apartment to head off to yet another expensive, trendy restaurant because that's what they like to do to avoid spending quiet time together at home."

"After several months of spending upwards of $300 per week on meals at trendy restaurants, the Averys 'began to wonder' if all this spending wasn't eating into their Dream Home fund.  Because the Averys, despite being able to afford that ridiculous apartment, are really all kinds of Dumb and couldn't figure out on their own that spending money in one way means that they can't spend it in another way.  Funny how that works, right?  I bet most of the people watching this ad knew that already.  But these are the Averys- they live a charmed life involving massive apartments, nightly dine-outs and, eventually, a Suburban Palace Just Because."

"Anyway, being the Averys, they decided to call Wells Fargo to ask 'hey, is our habit of eating out every night at trendy, expensive restaurants hurting our ability to save for our Dream House?  After the Wells Fargo financial consultant on the other end of the line got done simultaneously laughing, vomiting and rolling his eyes in complete disgust, he removed his hand from the speaker and calmly explained to the Averys that, yes, money is in fact a finite resource and not a magic well which stays at the same level no matter how much water is drawn from it."

"The Averys decided to cut back on their restaurant-hopping and spend more time in their Seriously Enormous Why Do They Even Want A House Apartment eating food prepared by themselves from the groceries they ordered from Whole Foods.  They came to realize that the reason they had been spending so much time at restaurants is because they couldn't bear to be alone with eachother unless they are surrounded by other people.  Even a stuffed-to-the-brim DVR and all those Netflix shows didn't help.  Within a few weeks, they had broken up, and individually neither could afford the awesome apartment anymore, problem solved."

"Wells Fargo.  Solving your First World problems, one call at a time."