Nothing Progressive About Any of This

 

Hey look, a male in an American TV commercial is being a clueless, destructive idiot while his long-suffering partner looks on with a mixture of encouragement and resignation.   Like pretty much every American TV commercial for the past thirty years.  

In this one, the Predictably Dumb Husband who somehow has a job that pays for this suburban palace and that overpriced truck is just going to keep trying to back into the driveway instead of just going in forward for some reason, and because he's equipped with male genitalia he's going to keep failing until his partner puts an end to it and- sends in a slightly more competent man to do the job.  I'm not sure why backing a truck into a driveway is a specifically male job, but I'm also not sure why American TV commercials insist on "playfully" taking down guys in every ad, but I don't work for an advertising firm so what would I know.  

Plus, I'm just an American guy so what would I know about anything that doesn't involve beer, gambling apps and breaking things anyway.  Now if you'll excuse me, I have to do some major damage somewhere while a woman looks on in quiet desperation. 

A few Quick Comments about the latest stupid State Farm Ad

 

1.  "What's going on here" is quickly answered with "he saved so much money bundling his insurance, he combined soccer with football."  But the question could just as easily mean "why are we standing here on the sidelines watching this" or "why are you always hanging around me, don't you have a job to do?"*

2.  "...he invented a new sport called Fruitball...." oh, whatever.  Talk about creating a gigantic glowing banner which reads STATE FARM HAS OFFICIALLY RUN OUT OF IDEAS.  What is the logical connection between saving some money and inventing a new sport?  There is none.  This is beyond Contrived; we need to invent a new word for it.  

*Seriously, though.  When is Pat Mahomes going to tell this guy to stop acting like they are joined at the hip?  Mahomes can't spend as much time with his wife as he does with this unfunny, uninteresting creep.  Shouldn't he be selling policies or denying coverage or something?  Does he actually work for State Farm, or is he just trying to make a living as Mahomes' most persistent stalker?  What the hell is going on here?

Jamie Foxx, MGM Bets, and sincerely offering a Second Chance

 

Don't despair because that touchdown you bet on didn't take place; wait a few moments until it doesn't happen again.  NOW you can despair for the rent, car payment, or medical bills that are going to go into default because you listened to a multi-millionaire who couldn't resist lining his already well-lined pockets just a little more tell you how SuperAwesome gambling is. 

Mr. Fox, I'm prepared to offer you a second chance.  Just give back the dirty money you took to make this and your other Betting Is Good Clean Fun commercials- or, better yet, donate it to Gambler's Anonymous - and issue a public apology for making those ads in the first place.  It won't do anything for the people you've already suckered in to this finances-and-life-destroying addiction, but if it convinces just one person to delete the app from their phone and seek professional help, it would be worth it- don't you think?  Or are you really that infatuated with the almighty dollar?  

The "Troll Toll" is just a cutesy relabeling of the Stupid Tax

 

So Mr. and Mrs. Diversity are cruising along in an SUV which is probably already crushing them in debt when they come across a bridge which requires a toll Because Reasons.  

Naturally, this family doesn't have two nickels to rub together- why would they be carrying money with them as they drive through the woods with two children, after all- but fortunately they've become very used to the concept of Kicking Problems Down The Road with Klarna, Affirm or, in this case, AfterPay.  Because why a small amount now when you can pay that same amount plus a crippling Oops You Missed A Payment Who Could Have Seen That Coming Oh That's Right Everybody later?

And I'm not even going to ask why people who have no money have an SUV and two kids because I've lived in this country long enough to know that deferred desires are just not a thing when compared to Living for Today.  So this family- and tens of thousands of families just like them- are going to keep pretending to be financially stable because they can pay that Stupid Tax---- err, I mean, "Troll Toll."

Those Mucinex Commercials....

 

...are, twelve years later, just stupid, disgusting walls of noise.  

Walls of noise that are just getting more obnoxious as they proceed through their second decade of polluting the airwaves.  And what really makes this annoying?  The fact that this stuff is actually pretty effective.  So why do the makers feel like they need to use this stupid gimmick, let alone use it for a dozen years?

AfterPay-for those of us who love the Stupid Tax and look for shortcuts to Crippling Debt

 

You can even.

Go into stupid debt.

Buying things like.

Food Delivery.

That's right.  

You can pay ridiculous interest fees

On dumb impulse items

Like delivery from Uber Eats and DoorDash

Proving

Once Again

That Americans will never

Stop finding new ways

To burn through money

they don't have.

Rinse.com is disgusting, evil, and all the rest of it

 

I was recently watching a podcast concerning the hidden costs of UberEats and DoorDash- the massive amounts of waste involved in transporting a heavily-packaged meal over any distance because millions of lazy, stupid-with-money asshats can't be bothered prepare food themselves or decided that the line at the drive-thru was too long on their way home from their sedentary jobs.

Rinse.com might even be worse.  Here are two able-bodied women who are about to settle down for a night (day?) of binge-watching some show when one is "interrupted" by the need to "finish her laundry."  Which means, acknowledge a notice on her phone that her laundry has been completed off-site by serfs and is being delivered to her door by other serfs.  Because she's "too busy" to do her own laundry, of course.  

Well, excuse me but what the actual hell?  There's no way that palace doesn't include a state-of-the-art washer and dryer.  You put your laundry in the washer, add soap, and then watch your tv.  You interrupt your viewing for five minutes at some point to move the laundry into the dryer.  You interrupt your viewing an hour later to take the laundry out, and you fold it while watching your show.  

Every other weekend I pack up my dirty laundry in my oversized backpack and pedal to the local laundromat.  Ninety minutes and $4 later my laundry is done for the week and I am on my way back home.  I didn't require a team to pick my clothes up, carry them off someplace in a gas-guzzling vehicle, be and cleaned and returned in another gas-guzzling vehicle packed in plastic and cardboard which will inevitably end up in a landfill.  I'm not a hero.  I just have two hours every two weeks to do this.  You can't tell me that these women can't do laundry while they are watching tv.

The Convenience Culture is getting really, really awful.  We've got prepackaged meals for specialized ovens.  We've got every restaurant, burger joint and 7-11 ready to deliver everything from a four-course meal to a bag of chips to our door at the swipe of a phone.  And now we've got spoiled princesses using a laundry service instead of the perfectly serviceable washer and dryer WE KNOW ARE SITTING IN THIS HOUSE.  

Again- what.  The actual.  Hell.