It's not enough that this guy owns a Lexus and is married to a trophy wife at his beck and call, but he's got to have a hobby that involves torturing huskies, too? I mean, come on- sled dogs? Get a freaking snowmobile. What's the matter, Lexus doesn't manufacture one so you can't look even more obnoxious to your neighbors?
Jesus, what's coming next year, Lexus? Cock fighting?
1. This guy needs to stop grossing out his family and wear some socks.*
2. This kid needs to find something to do that keeps her attention so she isn't distracted by her dad's gross feet.**
3. Is the doctor sitting in the living room with these people? I don't understand how she's taking part in this conversation.
4. Why is this kid yelling for mom? Oh right- because dad's being stupid, and mom will fix this. Mom fixes everything. Because Television.
5. Why are non-medical experts constantly being encouraged to Ask Their Doctor If This Drug Is Right For You? Isn't that kind of their job already? Oh right- yes, it's the doctor's job to diagnose and prescribe, but it's the patient's job to "helpfully suggest" expensive prescriptions rather than over-the-counter treatments- unless, of course, the problem is back pain, in which case it's Go Get a Salon Pas Patch and Get Out of My Office Already.
*seriously, put on some socks you gross, weird little man.
**seriously. I assume that this house has more than one room. Is there a reason you're required to play eighteen inches from your father's disgusting toes?
1. At the end of "How The Grinch Stole Christmas!" (book- 1957, network cartoon- 1966) the Grinch's heart grows three sizes, he realizes he had Christmas all wrong, he returns all the toys he stole, and he even carves the roast beast for all the Whos down in Whoville. In other words, he's a totally reformed character. This ad pretends that he still steals toys and is the pre-1957 Grinch in his outlook.
This is like portraying Scrooge as a vicious, bitter old miser in modern ads (which also happens.) It makes no sense. Stop portraying former villains as current villains.* It's stupid and doesn't fit into the Christmas spirit at all.
2. This guy's frozen smile is totally creeping me out. Get that thing surgically removed from your face, buddy. You look like someone offscreen has a gun to your head.
*while we're at it, how about keeping your grubby hands off our memories period and come up with your own characters, music, et cetera?
I'll put down serious money concerning the work philosophy of Fernando, the guy who according to this ad has "twenty businesses:" That he agrees with people like Dave Ramsey and his lapdog Ken Coleman- and Elon Musk- that people who work more than one job are committing "theft" from their employers for not giving 100 percent of their time to one company.
Never mind that mega-rich CEOs brag about how many companies they serve on the boards of or (like this guy) how many businesses they own outright. That's totally different, Because Reasons. If you are a teleworker who isn't available 24/7 for the company that is paying you for forty hours per week, you're a "thief." Doesn't matter if you get all your work done- when that happens, you aren't supposed to supplement your income by getting all of your work done somewhere else. You're supposed to ask your original employer for more work (but not more money.)
So the diminishing number of companies that are still permitting people to work from home are beginning to incorporate software to count keystrokes, require those workers to keep their laptop cameras on and have a photo taken of them every other minute or so, and other 1984-style "productivity monitors" in order to prevent employees from trying to engage in "career cushioning," or establishing another stream of income which provides some measure of financial independence from the company. Because it's bad enough that they don't want to waste time and money commuting to an office so that they can sit in a cubicle and do exactly the same thing they could just as easily do at home; we must make sure that the nose ring is securely fastened to one paycheck and one paycheck only.
Meanwhile, this guy can have twenty companies and nobody will accuse him of neglecting any of them while he takes a salary from all of them. This is just fine- again, because Reasons. Make it make sense, someone. Make it make sense.
If you are kept awake by worries over paying your rent, settling student loan debts, keeping the lights on or just getting enough food to keep your blood sugar up so that you can get to your dead-end job for another day, well, look at the silver lining: you could be one of the people in this ad, overwhelmed with "financial noise" consisting of buzzwords describing ways to shuffle money around when all you want to do is drink martinis in the bar of the five-star hotel you are staying at for your business conference.
So the next time your feet hurt because you've been standing at the register for eight straight hours, or you hear a rumor that your company is about to downsize or rightsize or whatever they are calling Firing People these days, just count your blessings- at least you aren't tortured with thoughts about whether you should invest in junk bonds, crypto or digital pictures of bored apes. Your problems are so simple compared to the struggles of the one percent. Why aren't more of you grateful?
I don't know who this person is, or what she's talking about, How exactly does paying $7.99 for warm starch, processed sugar, and enough carbohydrates to put an elephant into a coma (or the average family of fat Americans down for a long afternoon nap) equal a "good value?" Because it's cheaper than a bucket of Kentucky Fried Grease?
And "good taste?" Consuming this mass-produced, bland garbage shows "good taste?" Because it's not Taco Bell? Talk about setting the bar low- so low, in fact, that the average American can still step over it without breaking into a sweat. For now.
I guess some people think it's fun to watch Shaquille O'Neill attempt to toss a pizza for a few seconds, and hang out with a few Papa Johns employees for a few minutes, before getting into one of his luxury cars and driving to the airport to climb aboard his private jet to fly off to one of his houses, because it convinces them that this former NBA star with a net worth of $400 million is Just One of The Guys. I say "I guess," because I don't know, and I don't know because the comment section for this video is turned off.
I think it's entirely possible that some people also think that watching a guy who has rented his name and image to low-coverage, monthly-payment car insurance and high-interest rental "services" to a massive pizza chain in exchange for god knows how much money (which he doesn't need) is a little tone-deaf. Especially when you consider that those employees Shaq is having fun with won't make in ten years what Shaq made in a week of playing basketball- hell, they probably won't make in ten years what Shaq was paid to do this commercial.
But again- at least he's only selling trash "food" and not life-destroying addictions or terrible investments in non-fungible non-currency. That puts him above Jamie Foxx and the ubiquitous Kevin Hart, at least. Low bar, but Shaq gets over it. I wonder if he tipped those employees with something other than a signature before driving off in that car, though.
