What is happening on your TV? Maybe a guy is at a brightly lit sports bar with some friends he must hate, since those friends—unfailingly a racially homogenous gaggle of chuckleheads—are being really amazingly cunty to him about ordering the wrong light beer, and in fact seem to be suggesting that his choice is making them worry about him possibly being gay, which they apparently would not be cool with. Or maybe fluffy-haired tough guy Denis Leary is yelling at you—just straight-up yelling at you—about how you need to listen up re: Ford trucks and all the awards they’ve won from J.D. Power and Associates. The popular television firefighter snarls his way through something about the F-150’s new Eco-Drive, and it is coming out wrong because no one on earth can make the words “Eco-Drive” sound tough. Or, on the other side of the anxiety spectrum—and this wasn’t happening two weeks ago, but now it’s nearly December—some rich people are exchanging very expensive gifts. Yuppie ghouls prankishly give each other bow-wrapped Lexuses; khaki-clad saps surprise their wives with diamond jewelry designed by the star of Touched By An Angel. In a strange new campaign, people buy gadgets at Best Buy and then stay up late on Christmas night in order to shit-talk Santa Claus about it. It’s that or rust-colored pizza muppet Papa John bobbling and grinning something about his pizzas using “100 percent real meats.”
being subjected to live TV (i.e. commercials) this weekend for the first time in months was truly horrifying. not that TV ads are worse now; it’s just been great to never have to watch them, ever.
Oh same. I felt an acute anxiety when seeing these ads with family, looking around to determine how I was supposed to react. Is this some kind of new double irony? Is this actually an ad for a theatrical re-release of Idiocracy? Am I the only human on a planet of aliens? I can’t let anyone know.
“That’s funny,” said someone behind me, with a dead-eyed, unsmiling face, as my brain thought it heard, “Fuck you — it’s Pepsi,” emanating from the flatscreen.
