Yeah, I get that people are anxious to get back to vacationing. I have been waiting to go on a paid-for trip to Croatia since June 2020. So while I will never understand the attraction of traveling via floating hotel/casino/restaurant, I totally get the idea of doing something other than Staying At Home.
But a cruise ship where you're basically trapped with hundreds of other people for days at a time as you all crawl from one tourist destination to another while COVID is still rampant...no, not at all. I've never wanted to get away THAT badly. Cruises have always looked like a colossal bore anyway. A colossal bore which includes denied entry into included destinations, the possibility of serious illness and quarantine, all for much, much more than I'll pay for air travel and hotels on any of my trips to Europe. Oh but I don't get the casinos and the big pools which I'd miss if I ever wanted to just hang out in a giant hotel with a bunch of mostly old (I don't care what they show in these ads, the average cruise ship passenger is a wealthy 50-year old white guy) tourists who are on cruises because God Knows Why- they can't find their preferred strain of COVID in their home suburbs, or what?
If I have to spend any time at all explaining why this is a horrible commercial demonstrating horrible parenting of a horrible brat created by that horrible parenting, I just give up on my audience. Seriously, people, figure it out.
Meanwhile, I will agree with one YouTube commentator who points out that this ad is basically condemning the standard (and still available for sale) version of this product as inferior, downright sanity-threatening garbage when the stakes are really, really high (and when the loss of battery power will result in your daughter throwing an unholy fit and thrashing about like she's been bitten by a rabid dog, the stakes are really, really high.) I really hope that this dad is driving this daughter to a therapist or to the adoption agency so that her care can be taken up by competent adults who don't want to inflict another horrible, uncontrollable brat upon the world. Because this...this is just awful.
1. You're gonna love it for an instant. Then the taste is going to catch up to you and you're going to be wondering why you didn't wake up 20 minutes earlier so you'd have time to make yourself a decent breakfast. Or why you didn't wake up 2 minutes earlier so you could sit down and have a bowl of cereal.
2. You're gonna be full for an instant (maybe.) Then you're going to be really hungry and finding yourself pulling into the McDonald's drive-thru on the way to the office and wondering why you bothered to rush off to work if you're just going to waste time buying breakfast on the way anyway.
3. You're gonna be spilling that glass of chocolate milk all over you in an instant. Seriously, buddy, cup holders were not really made to hold large glasses. You think you're getting to work without it all over your suit? And when that happens, you think you won't be reminding yourself that if you had just set the alarm for 2 minutes earlier you could have just consumed that stuff in your kitchen and left the glass in the sink? That would have spared you looking like a disorganized idiot to the rest of the guys in the office AND a large dry cleaning bill.
No matter what else you do this holiday season, don't forget to constantly jam your ugly mug into your phone while you prance around and make a total ass of yourself for posterity (don't remind yourself that once it's on the web, it's Forever.) Never put down your phone because if you do, you might miss a "moment" that needs to be captured on your phone and shared and (probably) never revisited or thought about ever, ever again. (Remember that moments are to be Captured and Shared, never Experienced or Enjoyed!)
"So much shopping to do for my family before Christmas, what do I buy everyone? Especially since there's so many people, and I want to buy something for myself too! What a dilemma!"
"Wait! I've got it! I'll buy everybody in my family EYEGLASSES and CONTACT LENSES! That's a GREAT IDEA! I mean, I remember how much they all appreciated those flu vaccines I got them for their birthdays, and when I treated them to new Corrective Shoes even though I had already bought them shoes several years ago for absolutely no reason!"
"I mean, what could make a better gift than something that will cut down on their headaches and their walking into things like walls and traffic and may even improve their school grades? What a great mom I am! Maybe next year I'll buy them all haircuts for Christmas- as long as I can do it and still have money to buy myself something, of course!"
Meanwhile, I'm guessing that this woman is spending Christmas 2021 wondering why her kids and grandchildren never visit anymore. Maybe it's the Omicron variant? No, wait- they haven't visited for a decade. Must be something else.
At the end of this ad we see that this little girl actually does have parents, and is not being raised by her grandmother who sleeps most of the day and leaves her to her own devices. I wasn't sure- until that last scene, it looks for all the world that this kid is completely unsupervised through the day, as she is able to haul wires and decorations outside and make an elaborate "landing strip" for the Lexus she wants for some inexplicable reason.*
And of course "it worked! It worked!" because luxury cars do happen to find their way to the driveways of rich people, don't they? In this case, the Lexus apparently came with a price, though, since the "landing strip" has completely vanished overnight, replaced by this ridiculous car and a giant bow.
And now that this little girl thinks she can manipulate Santa into dropping very expensive items into her yard, what's coming up next year? I'm assuming she won't be using this awesome power to summon a cure for grandma's Alzheimer's, or an end to COVID, or anything super-selfish like that. Especially when she gets a look at the 2023 Audis.
*maybe she heard Mommy tell Daddy that she's leaving him right after the holidays unless he buys her a Lexus?
A lot of the YouTube comments following this ad focus on it's host- Fox News talking head and NRA enthusiast Dana Loesch, and how they would or would not buy any product she promoted. And I totally get that- I mean, if I came across a MyPillow and thought it was the most comfortable thing I'd ever rested my head on I still wouldn't buy one. But I have too much to say about the rest of the ad, and the product itself, to reach for the low-hanging fruit. So- you are dismissed, Ms Loesch.
We hear the term "healthy energy" a couple of times in this commercial, and I seriously have no idea what that means. In what way is energy "healthy" or "unhealthy?" Having energy allows you to do things helpful OR harmful to your health. So it's just a nonsense phrase. We might as well hear the phrase "positive vibes," but I'm guessing that there wasn't enough money in the budget to convince Ms. Loesch to utter that level of hipster doofus woo. Almost, but not quite. So we get "healthy energy" instead.
This stuff is just powdered beet juice. Beets are high in antioxidants. They are good for you, especially if you want to reduce inflammation of the joints. They are vegetables. They are good for you. Wait, I said that already. But this doesn't mean they are "super foods" because there's no such thing. They aren't a magic bullet to restore youthful energy (or even "healthy energy,") they won't accelerate brain function and they won't turn you from a couch potato to an Olympic athlete. They are just beets.
They won't do any harm, that's for sure. But buying into "SuperBeets" will cause harm to your wallet- this junk is $40 per shipment, and each shipment is a "month's worth" (who determines how much you need per month? Why, this company of course) and to get that "special deal" you have to get a SUBSCRIPTION which sends a jar of powdered beets to your door every thirty days. That's forty dollars you could spend on 6-8 three-pound bags of frozen fruit at the grocery store (like I do.) For powdered beets. Uh huh.
Fact is, this crap will do nothing for you that a balanced diet with lots of fruits and veggies, little or no processed sugar, and limited fats and carbs won't do much better. And it'll even make it more likely that you get regular moderate exercise (probably because of the "healthy energy" you'll feel.) And you won't have to go broke as part of the bargain. A double win!
But who am I to disagree with Dana Loesch? After all, SuperBeets are something both she and Thom Hartman shill for (I mean, Endorse Wholeheartedly Because They've Seen The Results Firsthand.) If a Trumpist and a Bernie Bro agree, how could they be wrong?
