Ignorance in Advertising - Soapbox Edition

Beyond the fact that almost anything shown on television has a target audience, nothing can be more apparent than the obvious aims of marketing in commercial advertisements. As an employee in the field of broadcast communication, no one can understand this more so than myself... HOWEVER, simply because you are aiming your appeal towards a specific demographic does NOT give you the right to produce ignorant, mindless, and sometimes offensive campaigns simply because your audience lacks the common sense to comprehend the basic idea of, oh, say, a cheeseburger commercial...



"What is so offensive about this commercial, Patrick?" I hear you say... GOOD QUESTION! Actually, it's a bad question... There IS nothing "offensive" in the classical sense about this commercial. What I find out of place about this ad is the fact that there is an incredibly beautiful woman, who is a noted chef/food critic/reality t.v. walking down this busy, inter-city street, and parking her designer ass on some random doorstep (cause you KNOW that bitch lives uptown) just to stuff her face with a big ass, fat-loaded heart attack on a bun, licking the drippings off her moisturized, sun-kissed legs, proving that she is just like the 500pound Bubba in backwoods Tennessee, all the while a voice over plays, talking about how she used to sneak out of the house when she was growing up just to "savour that sweet, spicy sauce".

OK, MY ASS! Seriously, like that had that shit in the third-world where she was born. The fact that this woman, in all her food-loving glory, would even CONSIDER eating this burger speaks exactly to the audience it targets... the illiterate. I'll be glad when Hardee's finds another celebrity to attempt to sell their over-processed death patties so they can pull this shit off the air.

Moving on to things that are TRULY offensive...



OK. This has made national news, all because of the outcry against it. What it shows is both asinine, and offense, to men AND women. Not only are men being portrayed as bumbling, insensitive idiots, but women are portrayed as tight-lipped, oppressive harpies who can find offense in any statement made by the aforementioned brain-numbingly dim male. Honestly, all I can think is what the hell are these two assholes doing together? Maybe between her implied cynicism and his foolish dribbling, they could find a reason to off each other and destroy yet another advertising pastiche of humanities stereotypes....

I'm sure there are SEVERAL more commercials that I could list here, and go on and on for hours picking them apart and detailing every little piece of deceptive or offensive marketing, but honestly, I have better things to do... like make the world a better place through MY cynicism...

Bringing out the animal...

I find myself wandering around my house, in the dark, waiting for my animalistic night vision to kick in... When it does, its not what I expect. I see neither better, nor worse, than I do on any other light-dampened day. The change is subtle, almost unnoticeable, but it is there all the same... I feel things, see things with an eye that is beyond physical and too powerful to be mental...

It is purely instinctual... a feeling that pervades my senses and rises above what I perceive as physical sensations. Its a "knowing", an undeniable realization of my surroundings. I walk through my darkened halls, knowing, not seeing, that a vaccum lies in my path... ethernet cables at my feet...

In the shower, I was overtaken by anger... Let it be known I am not an angry, violent or otherwise aggressive person, but this fire that burned beneath my flesh was unlike anything I have ever known... I wanted to tear, rip, shred ANYTHING I could get my claws on.

As I type this, my hands gnarled talons, my flesh exuding an indescribable heat, I wonder where it begins, this, instict to kill and destroy and... and... If ever there was a time when I was worried about myself, it would be now. When an uncontrolable rage blinds you to all but the innermost desires of destruction, and lust, and control, one must worry...

We are all animals, and it is our instinct, our unspoken thirst for survival that drives us. We can put on it whatever face we choose, but, behind that human facade, lies the heart, mind and soul of a beast... hunting, stalking... waiting for the right moment to strike.