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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
A fair point. Humans are immensely cooperative and compassionate within their in-group. (I quibble with how socio-biologists define altruism.)
I also think that you are correct that we have a natural love for our families without a need for out-groups to hate. However, when it comes to larger tribes or ethnicities, it seems that there is a serious need for out-groups to hate.
Almost every tribe refers to members of their own tribe as ‘human’ in their language and they call outsiders ‘enemies.’ It seems that we are naturally tribal despite our compassion.
“Hate” may be too strong a word, but it is human nature to fear, distrust, and believe the worst about those outside the tribe. Not all human instincts are positive ones. Part of civilizing children is teaching them when not to follow their instincts.
I’m not convinced there’s a problem here.
When people live very close to the edge it’s sensible to fear outsiders. As we get more secure that fear is attenuated. I guess I don’t see it as a negative, just a survival trait that continues to have value (trust those close to you more than you trust strangers; be wary of making yourself vulnerable to people you don’t know), and I’m not at all convinced that it does more harm than good even now.
A very fascinating point other Henry. You are right that caution of the other can be good but it seems that without Christianity (or maybe Buddhism) humans need to have a nemesis to hate.
James, I think you could make a career from this sort of analysis. Thank you.
To quote from The African Queen, “Human nature, Mr. Allnutt, is what we are put on this earth to overcome.”
Points for the Heinlein reference.
I’ve always been of two minds on literary analysis of commercials. On one hand it seems ridiculous to go to so much trouble on nonsense. On the other hand, a surprising amount of time and intellectual resources go into these short form stories upon which the financial futures of so many depend.
Will the future consider the television commercial the greatest art form of our present age? Perhaps we deserve it.
My gosh Mr. James – that ad gets your hackles up? I won’t mind having a hybrid myself, but on the Ricochet post ‘The Coming Storm’, the hint is there might not be anything to plug into to re-fuel! There are much worse ads that get my hackles up (most ads). I am really sick of all companies checking the woke boxes – all the African American actors, the Trans (MasterCard), the environmental stickers, the meatless meals – on and on and on……..and they can’t seem to ever retire “Flo” on Progressive………hackles up!
PS – Most of the ads are also crude, stupid, un-funny and many leave you with wanting to know what the ad was about or not wanting to buy the product because of the bad ad – like a woman sniffing her armpits 10 times a day until she buys an all natural, environmentally friendly eco deodorant – hackles up again……..
It could be that the business that James’ father spent his life working in has something to do with James’ perspective.
If I remember correctly, the car owner buys 86 cents of gas. That was a trash purchase when I was pumping gas for 33 cents a gallon in high school.
Front Seat Cat is correct about commercials that appear to be designed to annoy me. If there’s a dope or a jerk in a commercial and there’s a white guy in the commercial, the white guy is the jerk. Liberty Mutual, for instance, does not want my business if their commercials are anything to go by. Not just ignoring my demographic, which is sort of neutral, but actively deriding it.
Nissan and M&Ms are on thin ice.
The only commercials I’ve seen in the last year are from a few times when I helped my wife watch MSU Spartans basketball. I’m usually checking Ricochet on my tablet during commercials, so “seen” is perhaps an exaggeration, but some of the pro-vaccine commercials have made me a little more sympathetic to the anti-covid-vax crowd.
But if you don’t like them, there is an easy way to get rid of them, if you can find a brick or half-brick sized stone.
The only ads that I like and are actually memorable are the cute animal ads like Chewy or Petsmart.