Find Me Serenity

So here’s the thing. I watch sports. If my television is on there is a good chance there is a game or sports news program playing on it. Because of this, I see a lot more commercials than say, someone who watches their television on their DVRs or their streaming devices after the fact. The following is a rant that has been building up all season, NHL season that is.

There is one thing that is clear about ad agencies. They are run by men. Old men, most likely. Old men who feel like their manhood has been stripped from them somewhere down the line. Old men that still think Joan Rivers is relevant, old men who are still under the impression that holding a purse renders you unable to drink whisky with the boys. Old men who think women don’t eat meat. Old. Men.

Carl’s Jr. It saddens me that no one in the marketing department at Fox found it odd that in order to consume a new burger with extra meat and extra bacon, Mystique must change into a man. Now, if she simply changed into another person, male or female, as she often does, I would have let it go. But the commercial announcer proceeds to proclaim she must “man up” as she’s changing, and then “eat like you mean it” as the man-Mystique bites into the burger. Dear ad men, how many pieces of bacon is too many for a woman and, how much meat is over the female consumption limit?

Whisky. I am sorry, alcohol company, I do not remember who you are, I just know your inane commercial in which a woman sees a dress she’s been dying to try on and enthusiastically hands her purse to her husband to hold. The husband compliantly takes the purse and as soon as his wife is out of sight, drops it to the ground like it is on fire. He then produces a plastic bag out of his pocket, carefully picks the purse off the ground, again like it is on fire, and puts the purse in the bag to hide the fact that he is, OH MY GOD WHY!? holding his wife’s purse. A clap begins to ring out nearby and we cut to a group of men, drinking whatever the hell whisky they are selling, applauding like this man just did the most honorable thing ever. Dear ad men, that was a problem in 1940. Welcome to 2014. Hold my purse?

Honda. I have two problems with Honda. First of all, I just realized that in the “I’m a Honda guy” ads it is always women asking these helpful men in blue shirts to do inane things. That’s not even why I am mad at them though. Today I am mad because their Honda Civic commercial starts off with two folksy dudes sitting on a porch singing a tune that starts with “today the world is pretty sad” and then cuts to a woman in a Civic exclaiming that “it’s also pretty great!” Because the sadness in the world, definitely solvable with Hondas. Dear ad men, how many Honda Civics will feed the hungry, house the homeless or employ the unemployed?

These two fall into the old men who smoke a lot of dope category. Sprint and Discover. The issue with watching hockey, which is my sport of choice, is that it is sponsored by Discover Card. That means every single commercial break has a Discover commercial. For about a minute they had some fun ones, in their current “we’re good at customer service because we employ people just like you” campaign, but for some reason they have scrapped all but two of those and they show them, over and over. And over. I got the punchline now. Dear ad men, maybe change it up a bit? And then there’s Sprint. This new Framily Plan crap. I don’t even know what is going on here. A hamster, a hipster, and a bunch of other weird ass people arguing over the friends and family plan because see, they’re a Framily. Dear ad men. Put down the doobie, it’s only funny to you. Also, what? (For the ultimate in drug fueled ad campaigns see anything by Jack in the Box).

Last let’s talk about irrelevance. Joan Rivers has not been relevant for 100 years. Not to the mostly men (an assumption made by advertisers, not myself) who are obviously watching hockey and therefore ready to buy Dodge muscle cars right after their team scores a big goal. If, giving Dodge the benefit of the doubt, they were taking into consideration that women actually do watch sports, and buy cars, and therefore hired Ms. Rivers on that basis, they still missed the mark. She’s standing on a red carpet in front of three of the more popular heavy hitter cars Dodge has to offer, spouting off about how she knows everything about style but, haha because she’s old, she can’t remember where she lives! Dear ad men, thank you for trying, but not really.

There is no way I am willing to stop watching sports, or record them to utilize the fast forward function I employ so well with my shows, so my solution these days has been the mute button, which at least keeps me from having the dumb songs out of my head.

Thanks for reading. Go Kings.