Watching Television reminds me of how old I am.

 

Hey fellow Boomers-

Remember how we used to watch tv, see a commercial for an upcoming show, and think "hey, that looks kind of cool, I might have to check that out?"  Maybe we'd take out the TV Guide and confirm the date and time and which of the three channels we got it would be on. 

Nowadays, 99 percent of the commercials for upcoming shows I see that are not Reality TV involving strangers dating while living in the same mansion or mock series involving a town's obsession with a soda turn out to be on some streaming service I do not subscribe to.  It's not "hey, that looks kind of cool, I might have to check that out."  It's "oh, that looks kind of cool- maybe I should pay a monthly fee to - um, which streaming service is offering this again I already forgot?"  Heck, half the time I see an ad for an NFL game I find out at the end that it's not available to me because I don't subscribe to the right service.  

I don't think it's just because I'm old, either.  There are over SIXTY of these services available worldwide, half of which boast more than ten million subscribers.  Clearly the Age of Free Television, which dawned in the 1950s, is passing quickly, rapidly replaced by streaming services popularized by people who, when they aren't buying iPhones or complaining about student debt,* are eagerly throwing money at this provider or that provider because everything must be available all the time.

I thought it was getting bad when MLB playoff games were moved to cable-only channels, because yes I'm SO old I can remember watching even the earliest series on free network television.  Then the NFL network, ESPN, and now Peacock have begun to swallow up professional football.  I imagine the next generation will shake its head in disbelief that there was once free content that was something other than attractive people pretending to love or hate each other when not engaged in gladiatorial contests involving rubber mallets.  

*I'm not letting this go.  Pay your damn bills, you brats. 

More fun from Capital One!

 

You may remember Jennifer Garner from such films as.....well, actually, if you're under the age of forty,  you probably just know Jennifer Garner from her apparently endless willingness to shill for Capital One.  After all, she hasn't been in a big budget film in almost twenty years and she's NEVER been in a hit movie. 

Oh, but she's also a small business owner, and we all must worship at the altar of small business, so there's that.  We're also supposed to care, for the same reason we're supposed to care about all small businesses:  Because Reasons.  Know how much I actually care about Jennifer Garner's ability to float debt using her Capital One card?  About as much as I care about any small business.  Or Jennifer Garner.  

Why does Capital One do this? Of course, we know the answer....

 

There IS a reason for the aggressive, in-your-face affirmations that launch this ad for a credit card- and they have nothing to do with making us feel better about having to rely on self-imposed debt in order to "build a credit score" (prove worthy of that debt) and buy stuff we need to escape from the otherwise soul-crushing reality of being too poor to appear anything close to successful in modern America.  

Rather, it has everything to do with convincing us that we "deserve" nice stuff and if we can get that nice stuff through the use of a piece of plastic connected to a bank, we should do it and stop limiting ourselves to only buying things we can afford.  I mean, it's 2023.  Nobody does that anymore.  

So buy those pizzas, climb into that new car, sign a lease on that new apartment- because you've borrowed and paid back enough to be deemed Worthy of More Debt by the banking industry, and how much more affirmation do you need than that?

Morgan, Morgan and the Art of Always Demanding More

 

There's a whole series of these "Miss More" ads presented by Morgan and Morgan ambulance chasers Personal Injury Attorneys at Law, and they all star the same person, which creates a very awkward situation in which it's hard to imagine anything other than the main character being a total scam artist  getting rich filing nuisance lawsuits.  I mean, come on.  This really isn't the kind of ad campaign you can pull off with one actress.  It looks sketchy as hell.

Especially since Miss More never appears to be even the slightest bit injured in any of these ads.  She does, however, look almost demented in her happiness as she files yet another personal injury lawsuit. Remind me to never ever drive in the same zip code as this woman.  I'd never knock another woman's hustle, but that doesn't mean I want to be part of it. 

Man, the messaging in these ads is weird.  I might have to do another one somewhere down the road.  As I said, there's a whole series of this garbage. 

Hey PETA- check out this Kia Sportage Commercial!

 

Thankfully, the eagle that seizes this woman's reason for living smartphone flew very slowly, very low, was careful to stay near the road (not that these douchenozzles would have stayed on the highway to avoid killing wildlife if the eagle had swerved away from the pavement) and built it's nest very low to the ground so that this stunningly entitled woman could rescue her soul phone from that nest. 

And as a bonus, as near as we can tell the eagle's heart didn't explode from being chased at high speed by a huge, noisy metal behemoth chasing it through the desert.  Nor- as near as we can tell- were any of its young injured because Disgusting Horrible Woman simply had to retrieve her drug phone instead of oh, I don't know, just getting another one in a few months which is probably what she had planned anyway. 

You suck, KIA.  You suck really, really hard.  I don't care if this is a CGI eagle or, as suggested in the comments, is the pet of some trainer.  The optics are terrible.  Do better. 

Google, and Smart Phones in general, provide excellent reasons why even Millenials hate Millenials.

 

(Full disclosure:  I'm a Boomer.  But my point is that you don't have to be a Boomer to hate several things about these ads for ridiculously expensive toys or the people who insist on buying them.  You just need to have brain cells and a sense of shame.)

1.  When they aren't complaining about their student loans or their rent payments or the refusal of their employers to let them work from home, they are standing in line to buy the Very Latest Must Have Electronic Device because it has Titanium (because that sounds cool, not because it actually means anything) or (in the case of this ad) it has a Reality Eraser which you know people like this dumb ugly geek really, really wish they could have in Reality.

2.  They spend way, way too much time in their fleeting youth gasping for attention like a fish flopping around at the bottom of the boat.  This guy "needs" a $2000 phone because the one he bought six months ago isn't quite good enough to allow him to make a universally famous jackass of himself express himself to the world because, as I mentioned earlier, Reality keeps getting in the way.

3.  Total tools with way, way too much time on their hands pollute the comment sections of videos like this to express their admiration for the Shiny New Thing with a Camera (and maybe even Titanium!) that they really really desperately need to guy like yesterday Because Reasons, Reasons including "my life sucks because I don't have this and it will totally not suck the moment I get it."

In conclusion- every time I see one of these commercials, I feel a little less concerned for people from middle-class and upper-class suburban backgrounds struggling in dead-end jobs and burdened with student debt.  And I know that there are plenty of people out there half my age who feel the same way because seriously, you are shaming your own generation every time you buy in to this crap.  Just look at the comments posted in response to this ad.  It would be shameful if shame hadn't  died years ago.  RIP, shame.  We miss you!

One of the most racist commercials I've ever seen. Thanks, Aetna Medical Solutions!

 

Oh my god just check out the elderly woman as she- um, "saunters"- into the enormous kitchen of what is clearly a very substantial house to interrupt a conversation concerning Medicare benefits.  And while you're doing that, check out her liberal use of- um, the Queen's English- as she, um, "contributes' to said conversation.

Somehow we are supposed to believe that a woman who looks like she forgot to take the shirt she's wearing off the wire hanger it was on is "just loving" her "silver boxing lesson" which her friend Edna recommended, I suppose.  Never mind- that's quickly interrupted with Edna saying something that sounded to me like "Zero dollar monkey plan premium" the first six times I listened to it, followed by "Thank You Edna" which makes zero sense unless they are both named Edna.

The second Edna gives us a long drawn-out "Uh-HUHHHHH" to let us know that she's urban and black despite living in a house that is obviously in a wealthy suburb and then reveals that even though she's  enrolled in "silver boxing" despite having arms that look like she shared a cage with John McCain back in the late-60s she needs to be constantly reminded to do things by Edna # 1.  Things like getting to dental appointments.  We know she did that because she wants to protect a "million dollar smile" that we never see and no, we aren't going to complain.  We see more than we wanted to already.

Instead, let's complain about Aetna's marketing team deciding that this was a good representation of well-off elderly black people.  As I said in my opening sentence- oh my god.  What on earth were you thinking, Obviously Entirely White Advertising Firm hired by Aetna?