Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
TANSTAAFS
Modern TV ads irritate me like a cheese grater on a back patch of shingles, but man, this one had me seeing every shade of red in the spectrum.
As they say on Twitter: Show me you’ve never run a business without telling me you’ve never run a business.
We’re not just expected to side with the smug volt-dolt and cheer his life hack. We’re supposed to luxuriate in his fine-print end-run humiliation of a working guy. A gas station manager. You know, a loser. A guy who probably had to show up at 6 to cover the shift for someone who couldn’t make it because her child care fell through, so he had to get there early — manager’s obligation — and make sure the coffee urns were hot for the a.m. rush, make sure the bathrooms weren’t toxic from the bar-rush crowd, make sure the coolers were stocked, swab the floor by the soda machines (people spill all over the place, and it gets sticky), deal with pump six (it ran out of receipt paper), check the seals on the other pumps to make sure no one inserted a CC scanner, explain to the angry lady that the lottery terminal is down but it’s the state’s fault, run around to the back to let the Pepsi delivery guy in, put out the cones in the parking lot because the tanker is coming in to top off the tanks, check the candy aisle to replace the empty boxes with new ones, sign the sheet to indicate that he did a temp check on the premade wrapped sandwich cooler, adjust the price of gas on the sign because he just got an alert on his phone, jam the Marlboros in the rack, deal with the lady who had her prepaid card declined after he’d rung up $23.93 in groceries, restock the items she left on the counter, and then, during a rare lull, check the fargin’ level in the got-damned windshield wiper reservoirs and make sure the paper towels in the dispenser on the island were stocked, and check the hand-sanitizer levels on the island as well, that’s a new one, but you get wrote up if you don’t, and then on the way back in the store, deal with a guy who was complaining about the Redbox video machine because it was out of the movie he wanted, even though that’s not part of his job at all, they just hire out the space outside the store, but the guy swears he reserved a movie, here, look at this, I got an email proving it, it’s your store, do something.
And then. AND THEN. THIS GUY. THIS FRICKIN GUY.
The comments on YouTube seem overwhelmingly negative, which gives me hope for America. I, for one, now hate Hyundai and everyone involved in the creation of this ad. I want the creative director of this ad to stumble across a TikTok of his UberEats driver eating some of his wings en route to delivery and laughing about it. I want the writer of the ad to discover that someone stole one of his ideas and took credit. I want the account executive to toss his Tesla fob to a valet who drives it into a concrete post.
[17 CoC language violations]
Published in General
Nothing to add. There’s a part of the culture that celebrates being a smug jerk. I want no part of it.
Car commercials and tech company commercials have consistently been the worst commercials on TV for many years now.
Okay Boomer, if you don’t appreciate that his hybrid vehicle doesn’t need gas because it gets its power from free and pure and infinitely renewable wind and solar, I don’t know what to tell you. Fossil fuels will soon be a thing of our sooty past, so that squeegee-obsessed petro-pusher had better learn to code.
(Meanwhile, the grid groans and sags as each new EV hits the road….)
Truth of 73
1 day agoObviously written by millennials.
–Comment from Youtube that sums up this grating, facile commercial.
America is engaged in a mighty class war, between the actual elites, the outer party elites, and the rest of us. The shocktroops for the elites are the growing underclass who think things will get better but never will.
Not exactly on point, but I moved to Alaska after college in 1985, driving up the Alaska Highway when there were still several hundred miles of it unpaved. After one particularly messy stretch, I pulled into a gas station not because I needed gas but because I couldn’t see much out of the windshield.
I still remember the look the guy that ran the station gave me when I used the squeegee without buying gas. I think I did go in and buy a candybar or something to make up for it.
To this day I won’t use the bathroom at a gas station or fast-food place without buying something.
Although I will use the free airpump at Kwiktrip without going into the store.
Or the gas station I use is ultra busy during rush hour and cars are waiting inline for a pump. Then smug boy shows up and uses a pump to squeegee his window, but discovers the squeegee is not up to his standards because its 2 months old, so he goes to another isle and grabs a better squeegee, thus leaving the rancher, with 1 million splatted bugs on his front windshield, with nothing and he just leaves.
I hate smug boy.
“I thought these pompous, pointy-headed climate idealists bought electric cars so they wouldn’t stop at gas stations.” Said the manager.
Full disclosure – I just took delivery of a 2022 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid (not plug in) last week.
So far I like it.
Same here.
Love this post! I just finished listening to VDH’s latest with Jack Fowler. I think he’d agree with you, James, regarding this statement: “We’re supposed to luxuriate in his fine-print end-run humiliation of a working guy. A gas station manager.”
I turned off my TV three years ago and gave it to a grandson, so I no longer have to deal with those stupid commercials. I gave up on TV when I was watching a golf tournament and realized that their was more time spent on commercials than on golf. I have not missed the TV at all, especially the “news” programs. In fact, I am probably much happier and better informed without it.
I’d like to see a competing ad from the local electric utility and see the gas station guy have that kid pop his trunk open and see him stoke a couple shovels of coal in.
It was obvious that it was a car ad, but I liked the looks and way of talking of the gas station manager. If you polled random people after they watched the parts of the video showing the interactions between the two guys, I wonder whose side they would take. I imagine there would be some of each, and that there should be some kind of registry of people who prefer the youngster, so our cells phones can warn us to be wary when they’re in the vicinity.
I own an ordinary Hyundai and like it a lot. I’d just add that those kinds of ads will probably pop up with other car companies, as they get bolder and more snooty about their product. Watch for it.
There’s always the bicycle, though.
Slightly tangential to topic, but my regional electric / natural gas utility spends all its TV ads touting their “commitment” to being “carbon-neutral” by 2050 or something. And then it sends out glossy 4-color mailers saying the same thing.
I just wish they’d spend time on, oh, I don’t know, maybe shoring up the grid’s capacity, redundancy, and security, while making arrangements for providing us with reliable electricity (rather than being hell-bent on destroying the last of our eternally renewable hydroelectric dams’ power generation) and pushing the feds to open up our American energy sector again.
I want a car that runs on soy boyz.
When I saw this ad, I thought, “Why does this guy think the squeegee should be free to use? It’s there for customers. You know, the people the business serves in return for payment.” I remarked on it to the hubby, but never thought to be all that irritated by it. I see now I was wrong. It really is all kinds of insulting. Talk about privilege.
But it may work as an ad. It’s directed at car buyers who want to feel superior. That’s half the reason to get a hybrid, isn’t it?
This all new hi-tech wondermobile has to have the windows cleaned manually?
Exactly. What insect in the noble, innocent world of nature would even think of soiling such a car’s windshield?
The car is perfectly clean. So some pigeon dumped on the window — beautiful.
I really like my Ford Fusion Hybrid too – makes perfect sense to me to squeeze as much out of every drop of fuel.
Considering that Maverick pick-up hybrid when the chip shortage is (hopefully) corrected and production begi in again.
I drive a hybrid, but I always want to buy even a tiny bit of gas if I’m going to use the gas station restroom . . .
Maybe gas station owners could run a commercial showing the lights dimming in smug guy’s neighborhood when he and several of his neighbors get home from work and all simultaneously plug in their plug-in cars (I don’t know if it’d be technically true, maybe have the neighborhood transformer blow and they’re all at the gas station getting gas for their generators).
Unless they’re in the People’s Republic of California, in which case such generators are illegal.
(Or at least, can no longer be sold.)
Then the guy left the gas station and went to the Olive Garden for a glass of water and the complimentary unlimited breadsticks.
Anyway, I didn’t like the ad when I saw it the first time, but I never imagined how much of a backstory there was about the gas station guy’s day.
Actually one of my favorite ads ever was for Texaco, I think. It was something about introducing their new modern style of stations, as I recall, and it was “narrated” by some birds who were admiring it from their nearby perches. They saw a guy with some kind of SUV pull in to fuel up, and it became clear that he was taking his pregnant wife to the hospital for delivery. As they drove off, the birds swooped down and grabbed onto the roof rack, and started making siren noises. I loved it! Never been able to find it anywhere, but I loved it!
Now that would be a great ad!
Human beings are made to hate each other. We yearn to belong to a group that defines itself against the other.
Your misanthropy is charming but, I think, unfounded.
Human beings are evolved to balance the benefits of mutual support, altruism, compassion, and love with the need to avoid being exploited and abused by people who may seek to do harm. So we tend to be most generous and loving to those closest to us, and less so as our connections become more distant and tenuous.
And I don’t think our close connections are close because there are other, more distant people out there who serve to create a contrast: I don’t love my children more because there are children in Africa I’ve never met.