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It always bothers me that I enjoyed every beer commercial even before I could drink beer, and that I disliked pretty much every anti-drug commercial. The terrible ending of the Amazon series The Boys brings this to mind, and the Based Camp podcast explains why: it’s all about vitalism. Beer commercials are always vitalistic because they always try to be fun, and the very best of them aren’t just fun but life-affirming.
What’s the essence of almost every beer commercial? A group of unusually multiracial guys is having fun together and there are beautiful women. Sometimes there is an American flag in the background or a cool-looking horse. It’s a good time.
What’s your average anti-drug PSA? Don’t do this, or you will die. It is a schoolmarm shushing you for laughing in class. It appeals to fear in a shrill and pinched way. Not only are anti-drug commercials joyless, but they are usually so devoid of humor that they are anti-joy. Somehow, anti-joy particles go back in time and make the beer commercial you watched before less fun. I am doubtful that anti-drug commercials are effective.
I like looking at beautiful women and cool horses. (Though thankfully, for very different reasons.) So do most people. Most people don’t like being hectored. Even for a good reason.
Recently, entertainment has taken a hectoring and anti-joy tone. The ending of the Amazon streaming show, The Boys, decided to go for a lecturing tone rather than making the show as entertaining as possible. The Boys, at its best, affirmed life because it was funny—albeit in a silly beer commercial way. It was not great literature or even great American television, but it was a very fun show that decided to stop being fun and become a PSA.
It’s a small loss of fun on a show that is comparatively small compared to all of entertainment. But it matters.
Discussion (25)
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For me, the essence of a good beer commercial is the pour. It's a thing of beauty.
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FIFY
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And They are rememberable:
Spuds McKenzie
The Swedish Bikini Team
Less Filling.... Taste Great
I was a kid during those times and still remember Them. Vividly.
I remember one PSA about an egg.
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Beer commercials are peak 'guy' and they let men laugh and women roll their eyes and a good time is had by all.
I suffer from a guy deficiency such that football and most sports leave me cold, but every day after the Superbowl I google the best commercials and the beer commercial is always in the top five. And sure, the amount of money they spend on those to get them right (not to mention the money they pay to get it aired when the time is most right) is staggering.
The PSAs (and Nancy's 'Just Say No') are very briefly effective and are quickly reversed causing many to assume they are being lied to about the dangers of drugs, and no wonder: government announcements are over-bearing, overfunded, under-produced, and unconvincing. When young people are at their most antiauthoritarian, here comes government telling them that you're gonna die from marijuana poisoninggg!!!111
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The head, the lighting, the condensation!
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