Because of course the Phone of Choice for a $10-per-hour Bike Delivery Monkey is the $1200 Apple iPhone 13. Either Apple has no idea how much people make, or Apple is very, very familiar with the spending choices of people determined to be poor, or Apple is very, very familiar with the typical twenty-something's idea of what a "necessity" is.
Seriously, buddy- you don't need the latest Status Flasher from Apple to do your job. You need a $79 Garmin you can pick up on Amazon or at Walmart. Oh but that doesn't come with three cameras you don't need, either, plus it doesn't show well for your friends,* so I guess that's out, huh?
*So I guess we know where this guy's stimulus check went, don't we? Not paying back rent. Not taking care of some bills that had backed up during the Pandemic. Not Savings. Nope, that check went right to the newest shiny toy that had the awesome power to make this guy forget that he's a poor shmuck with absolutely no sense or thought for tomorrow because if another "unexpected" bill comes up, well, that's what relatives or government aid is there for, right?
(To be fair, none of these lame "Fansville" Dr. Pepper commercials really work, for a number of reasons. First, not only are they all one-joke, one-beat garbage, but the one joke is always the same joke. Second, that one joke isn't funny.)
This particular Dr. Pepper commercial fails for two ADDITIONAL reasons:
1. It plays on the "desperate to be a bride" trope. You know, the one where extremely attractive young women long to be swept off their feet by any fat doofus with a ring (and maybe a great iPhone package?) who comes around to offer them escape from their Last Name and a life of child-bearing and child-rearing in a suburban McMansion. That one. The one that's been played to death and (I hope) hasn't aged well at all. It's 2021, television. Women have goals that don't revolve around a guy and a house and kids.
2. It invents it's own trope which doesn't fit with the first one, suggesting that MEN are JUST AS ANXIOUS to get married and will mug each other to get that garter once the groom tosses it in the air. Excuse me, but this makes negative sense in the universe you yourself created. If those beautiful young women are desperate to get married, and those doofus fat men are equally desperate to get married, why don't they....I don't know, I'm just reaching here...MARRY EACH OTHER? After all, these women clearly just want to get married and really don't care who offers the ring. And these men are NOT going to do better than these beautiful young women. Seriously, what the actual hell??
Here's another one of those otherworldly AT&T ads featuring one a glowing, spotlessly clean store, exactly one customer, and AT&T employees who look like they HAVEN'T been on their feet for eight hours dealing with 200 angry, frustrated, sweating people who have been waiting for their name to show up on a screen to let them know that they haven't been lost in the system and will, eventually, get a chance to be told that no, they can't get the problem they have with their phone fixed unless they Upgrade to a more expensive plan.
As usual, the customer is Already With AT&T but No Problem, she's eligible for whatever BS offer AT&T is offering this week in a desperate attempt to keep up with the competition, which figured out quite some time ago that Lily is nice to look at but no reason to maintain "loyalty" to a freaking phone service provider when there are a dozen other similarly priced packages out there offering the same thing that don't have to pay an actress whose Fifteen Minutes ran out three years ago. AT&T isn't in any position to favor new customers over old when all their competitors are lining up to offer to pay their way out of any contract if you agree to jump over.
Because- know what? AT&T stores don't look like this in real life. They look like T-Mobile stores and Cricket stores and Sprint stores- they are hot, crowded and staffed by damp, limp, exhausted young people trying to balance school with the need to earn a paycheck who have a limited knowledge of phones but are well-versed in contract limitations and the concept that those paychecks depend on signing up a certain number of people each shift. Nobody in their right mind would just stroll into one of these stores for no reason and, in fact, anyone with half a brain dreads having to walk into that door, because they know it's going to be a long wait for any help at all and odds are at least even that you'll walk out having accomplished absolutely nothing. If you're tired enough when you walk in, you might even walk out having signed something you didn't read that's going to cost you much more than you realize.
I guess that Lexus thinks "Modern" equals "Ridiculously wealthy." It's not enough that this family has a tricked-out Lexus with "stealth mode" (seriously, what is the purpose of this "feature," anyway? Just to not wake up your kids when you get home? For real? Because I can tell you that the people who drive past my house have zero interest in "stealth mode." More like "I need to let everyone in this neighborhood know what crap taste I have in 'music' mode.") Look at that house. Come on. How is this at all relatable to anyone?
And as for that daughter- shut the f--k up, little girl. Your stupid-rich parents don't have to dash home from parent-teacher conferences if they don't want to. They are adults- even if they do act like naughty children trying to sneak back into their own house. Go back to your bedroom in the palace they provide for you. And thank the genetic lottery for your ridiculous privileged life. You all make me sick. Seriously.
It's my understanding that the original "Jake" from the "Jake from State Farm" ads which first appeared back in 2011 was an actual State Farm employee who answered a casting call and landed the spot which many viewers found mildly amusing a few times (in television lexicon, that means "captured our hearts" and "became a cultural icon," because of course Television.)
And it's also my understanding that when State Farm decided to bring the character back (sort of; he's so different, I kind of wonder why they even went with the name "Jake" and didn't just invent a new character) they decided to go with someone with acting experience, because apparently being a grinning toady stalker who bleats the same lines in every single ad requires acting experience- more acting experience than that original guy could have ever hoped to achieve. I mean, just one viewing of any of the "new" Jake from State Farm Commercials should convince anyone that the guy playing Jake probably has at least a decade of theater experience, probably even Broadway, am I right?
And State Farm is so determined that the new Jake become as iconic as the old one (how hard could that be?) that a recent State Farm-sponsored "story" about the new guy playing Jake (Kevin something. I don't care) "assures" us that he's "here to stay," like we're supposed to be concerned, or something.
But my question is, what is it about this role that made State Farm believe it needed to be filled with a "professional actor" in the first place? Jake has one look- a squinty eyed, bemused level of smarm delivered with a grin that makes any sane person want to punch him square in the face. He has the emotional range of Michael B Jordan or his female equivalent, Alicia Vikander. He has at most three lines. The same three lines. In every ad. This requires talent?
Oh, but this guy is in much better shape than the original Jake, who didn't hang around with celebrities like a starstruck lickspittle but just sat in his cubicle doing his job. I'm guessing that when it comes to actual employees, State Farm would prefer that they act like the first Jake and doesn't really care if they have good muscle tone because- well, they're just supposed to be answering calls, not f--king off with Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers (I bet he wishes he had worn a mask) or anyone else on the company's time.
Zach and Zoe are typical of millions of Americans who dream of someday not getting up and going to an honest job to do an honest day's work but instead grift their way to success by finding a niche market to sell a non-product to a gullible public which has money because it gets up every day and goes to an honest job, decided one day after visiting a farmer's market that hey, why can't they sell something to stupid rich white people?
Zach and Zoe then decided that they needed an attractive "origin story" that didn't involve anything I posted in the first paragraph because that just sounds awful. "I wasn't satisfied with what was available out there" has been done to death, and besides, it's not like thousands of people out there aren't already selling honey, so they went with "this all started when we discovered the benefits of local honey."* Huh. That's interesting, for two reasons: First, if Zach and Zoe "discovered the benefits of local honey," that means that someone local was already selling local honey. So what they "decided" to do was try to steal someone else's hustle. Much easier than being original, I guess. But second, don't hold your breath waiting to hear what those "benefits" are, because you're not going to. Probably because the Benefits of Local Honey boils down to "suburban idiots think that local honey has benefits, which means they'll buy it." The actual Benefit lies in the gullibility of people with money.
That doesn't sound good, so let's just focus on how easy it is to scam the public into buying your bee poo packaged in cutesy-quaint glass jars by partnering with Chase Business Complete Banking- specifically, how important it is to complete the transaction quickly, before that public has a chance to realize that it's paying for overpriced bee excrement because it has undefined Benefits which have never been defined and are certainly not going to be by these smiling entrepreneurs who just want to call themselves business people Never You Damn Mind that they have Nothing to Sell.**
And to top off this stupid celebration of Capitalism, we get a scene where Zach and Zoe are feeding honey to their children because Of Course They Are.
*and can we be honest for a second, please? Zach and Zoe will drop that "local honey" BS the moment they have the opportunity to take this grift national. How are they going to go about selling their crap as "local honey" when Nestle offers to add it as a subdivision and market it everywhere? Think Zach and Zoe will give a flying damn when they are rolling in cold hard cash? Me neither.
**I've lived in a Dark Blue Suburb for enough years to know that there's NOTHING that upper-class white people appreciate more than the opportunity to purchase ANYTHING being sold by a smiling black family at a farmer's market, where everyone they know can see them doing it. Because nothing brings a suburban white person closer to nirvana than patronizing a black-owned business, especially when that black-owned business is being run by a black family that looks like they just stepped out of the background shots of a Hallmark Christmas movie. All these guys have to do is offer "Hate Has No Home Here" yard signs free with every purchase over $20 and they'll totally clean up, every time.
You know, this guy may as well just propose marriage right now. First, he'll never be more excited about anything than switching to T-Mobile, so why not just ride that enthusiasm right into another commitments? Second, it's pretty obvious that this woman- though surprised at the notion of being proposed to, I mean, just go back and look at her posture when she thinks he's about to pull out a ring- will respond with a "yes." She's so obviously desperate- she's with this breathlessly enthusiastic-over-a-freaking-phone dweeb, after all- she'd probably accept a proposal from the waiter if he said anything that sounded anything close to one. I'm guessing this is at least the fourth time she thought this guy was about to propose, and the first time was on their first date.
By the way, haven't I seen this almost exact same commercial before, either for T-Mobile or another mobile service? I'm sure I have- the only difference was that the guy was giving a smartphone to his date and begging her to sign up with him because the phone was free with a new contract, or something. That was gross. This is at least as bad.
