Don’t buy this shit! All you get is more shit!

I don’t have cable TV, just a set of rabbit ears. And my viewing habits consist mostly of Buffy and Glee DVDs, which have no commercial breaks. So advertisers have just a teensy window of time to explain why I must have whatever they’re selling. But even people with satellites full of obscure little specialty channels (like my parents) are bombarded with commercials, all trying to make them believe their product or service is the best in the universe.

I am astonished by the number of colossally horrible ads. I’m don’t mean the cheesy “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” emulators and the ambulance-chasing lawyers and debt consolidators promoting their services. Those are bad because they are low-budget. But how dare those big players who have their choice of the top ad agencies to produce their commercials give us drivel like the following:

1.Cottonelle Saved my Marriage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0CTJj_-nJI&feature=related –

Perhaps something got lost in translation from the French version, but all this ad did was make me cringe.

I’m guessing the intent was to be humorous, but I felt only pity for that woman. She’s gushing over the virtue of a freakin’ toilet paper as we hear hubby make happy male noises off-camera, supposedly from the ensuite bath. She’s smiling in that “he hasn’t touched me since I had the kids and I was desperate to save this relationship! Thank you Cottonelle!” way. And right on cue, hubby steps out of the bathroom in his vintage Herb Tarlek finery ready to dry hump her on the dance floor at the local disco.

If their marital problems weren’t caused solely by hemorrhoids, this campaign is just sad and will not compel anyone to pay that dollar or two more to upgrade from store brand bathroom tissue.

2. Pull Ups training pants (featuring the “potty dance”)

I refuse to link to this one. It has already led to dozens of ill-advised youtube “tributes” made by misguided parents hoping to one day embarrass the crap out of their kids. I for one am embarrassed to be in the room when that bloody song interrupts The Young and the Restless. I’m guessing they paid the poor shlub who sang it a lot of money (though no amount of money can buy back dignity) as well as the potty dancing kids and adults. I can’t fathom why the hell anyone would anyone consent to being seen by millions doing the stupid thing for free.

As my children were all born crack litter box users, I am aware Pull-Ups doesn’t care what I think. But if I were part of their target market, I’d go out of my way to buy the rival big kid pants for fear of catching the stupid that led to those youtube So You Think You Can Potty Dance travesties.

3. Dairy Queen- 1/4 Lb. Bacon Cheese Burger Grill Burger

Disembodied whore lips singing about dreaming of “meat and bouncing pickles” then telling us to “shove it in our mouths.” And then fireworks explode out of nothingness. Creepy. I’d add that it makes me wonder what they put in the secret sauce, but that would be too easy.

4. Tim Horton’s “Worst. Ring Tone. Ever.”

What, because Timmy’s is a Canadian institution they don’t have to pay writers to come up with clever ads (at least I hope they didn’t)? Their commercials have been stupid for a very long time but the recent ad for their Caramel Café Mocha with a grating, synthesized “I Love Caramel” ring tone is just irritating. Wow, this gal must be batshit about caramel.

5. Multigrain Cheerios- “The box says I’m a bad, bad man and have a small penis.”

Television is overrun with ads that portray men (or at least husbands) as overgrown children who can’t be trusted to do anything around the house but can always be counted on to say the wrong thing. Why? Such commercials appeal to women (who still do most of the grocery shopping) who married losers in order to have babies and are now kicking themselves.

“Oh, that’s my husband all right! Lord, how I hate the bastard but I must swallow my resentment and carry on for the sake of our spawn who never, ever stop wanting STUFF—and he thinks I’m FAT! Why oh why did I go off the pill?”

These ads do neither sex any favors (men are morons, women are insecure ball breakers) and have caused me to never want to marry. At least we don’t have to suffer through the horribly dubbed (why the hell do we need to dub a commercial that was already in english? Would British accents make Cheerios seem snooty?) version that got foisted on Americans.

I know times are tough and even very big corporations may have less money to spend on advertising.

But how do you expect to penetrate our collective brain fog with advertising so bland and irritating? Or maybe it’s the brain fog that’s allowing such ads to happen.

You can’t throw a dried up old pen out the window in a major city without it bouncing off a hungry writer willing to compromise art in the name of eating or buying a second pair of trousers. No need to overpay talentless hacks or ask your ten-year old kid to write your scripts.

Dear readers (especially my adoring subscribers), you have the power to stop such ads. Don’t buy what they’re selling! Send your kids Pull-Ups back in protest (especially used ones)!

Please, before I am forced to get rid of my TV.

A hollow threat, yes. But just do it anyway! This revolution will not be televised. But it may end up on youtube.

Stupid is the new smart: Diesel attempts to create more fools to part from their money

I was flipping through some silly magazine in the waiting room at the Toronto Sleep Clinic when I came across the most peculiar advertisement. It featured what appeared to be a man in goofy looking sneakers approaching a urinal, his pants-less “girlfriend” piggy-backing him and apparently reaching for his fly. As if he were too drunk to piss on his own but not too drunk not to fall to the ground breaking both their necks. The ad was for Diesel, and the caption at the bottom read: Be Stupid.

Perplexing. What company would want their brand associated with stupid people? I was intrigued enough to investigate a little further. It turned out, this ad was just a small part of a big-ass, controversial campaign. Behold:

http://www.diesel.com/be-stupid/

Diesel tells us in a little video of their grandiose plans to change the very definition of “stupid” to mean “bold” or “gutsy” and if we don’t get it we’re old and boring (ie- “smart”) and will die with all our dreams unrealized. They go on to show us pictures of attractive young people doing all manner of “stupid” things. They range from “oooh, she’s on a ladder and flashing a CCTV camera, how earth shattering!” to asinine to what could be shortlisted for this year’s Darwin Awards.

In one ad, we see (as far as a smart old square like me can tell) a guy cheating on his girlfriend (or maybe the reverse) and hiding his little piece on the side under the bed. Heroic, no? In another, a bikini-clad revolutionary pulls back her bottoms to photograph her vag while standing in front of a hungry lion. I find myself rooting for the lion  to “get her already before she has a chance to have unprotected sex and BREED!”

Be stupid, because goshums, thinking is HARD!

I half expect to see that caption under a shot featuring a bunch of gorgeous teens anxiously biting their fake nails  in the waiting room of a vd clinic.

Or some vaccuous hottie waking up from a night of glamorous binge drinking married to one of the Jersey Shore douchebags and suffering from highly stylized bed head.

Or a whole slew of sexy stupid people chainsawed to death by a masked serial killer because they thought it would be “stupid” to check out that abandoned mental hospital in the middle of the night on the anniversary of the murder of seventy-five children. All piled in a sexy and suggestive heap.

I wouldn’t be at all shocked if Diesel steals these ideas. And I will sue.

We all do stupid things, but 99% of the time it results in agony or the very least inconvenience. The coveted “stories” Diesel tells us  our stupidity will be rewarded with tend to be inane and interesting only to other stupid people.

Sure, it gets us to the website, but does it translate to sales? Can the truly stupid even afford whatever it is they actually sell after spending all their money on magic beans? Probably. But taking advantage of the  stupid people, while profitable, is just plain mean.

Besides, there is enough reckless stupidity in the world without such a slick and ever-present war on using one’s brains. I’m shocked they’re not spelling it “stoopid.” After all, the use of correct spelling and any sort of punctuation is for those sad, smart people. Why send us hurtling ever closer to an idiocracy just to sell us your shit? If you’re going to revolutionize our way of thinking, as you claim to be doing in your video, bloody hell at least encourage people to think.

Sure, go ahead and be stupid; the smart people will clean up your mess. Or you’ll all be eaten by lions.

Is it real, or is it Booty Pop?

No, booty pop is not a new hip-hop move or gas-inducing soda (like any sensible person would think).

First, the word “booty” should only be used by todlers and pirates. So many alternatives (butt, rump, backside, arse, deriere, can etc.) and this is the one that catches on? Even if I wanted to decieve men into thinking my backside was more luscious than it actually is (and don’t try to begrudge me my false eyelashes, I only wear them on camera or when a situation calls for a lot of eye drama), I wouldn’t buy something with such a stupid name. I was embarassed to be watching that commercial!

True, it’s not really different than wearing a padded bra (not that I own one). Though removing of said bra is way sexier than those ugly granny panties would be.

These knickers are hideous, no matter how hard they may try to sex ‘em up (the sizes are called “sweet,” “sweeter,” and “sweetest” and come in colours like “black licorice” and “cotton candy.”)

Supposing someone invented a pair of underpants for men that had the strategic padding in the crotch? This would be seen as a conspiracy to trick women into sleeping with guys they believe are well endowed but (surprise!) aren’t. Angry mobs would surely follow.

But scores of disappointed ass men…okay, I do find that mildly hillarious.

 At best, this garment might make a great deterrent to those douchebag ass-grabbers who slither around the clubs (he won’t be grabbing your actual ass after all). Maybe they could emit electric shocks. But I still wouldn’t buy ‘em. You know, on the account of the stupid name.