Clayton's LV/ H8: The Commercial-Free Edition

 I will not take the initial paragraph of this blog to make amends or excuses for my absence. Instead I will rail and rant and rave at the very few readers of this blog even in its wonderful regular-posting days who have not only failed to note my absence but further have failed to repost and comment on Andrew's amazing blogs. I blame this all on you! I sat down last week and read the last fifteen or twenty of these blogs and was thoroughly astounded at the quality of the posts. Yes, they meander wildly and puff themselves up with self-important humdrum, and yes, I most likely connect with them because either I my big brother have written them, but there's a nugget of something very promising and fulfilling in these blogs. They make me laugh but think; roll my eyes, but only to cover the tears in them. This blog is a very good one, and I hope that even with periodic and erratic updates the quality continues to impress at least me.

 I have had sitting on my desktop for the past four or five months a glorious electronic sticky note. It lies pinned toward the upper right corner, only slightly blocking my current desktop image of the cast of America's Next Top Model: All-Stars, untouched and unrelenting. It has housed the list for my next LV/ H8 update, the one that is months in coming. The note reads as follows:
 H8:

 "Too cool" commercials
 Radio commercials
 Men are dumb commercials
 Gum commercials

 Local commercials
 Dragon Tattoo preview

wtf: reaction videos

 Inspiring, I know. If in a few hundred years poor yuppie college kids are reading through my dreary prose and taking copious notes only because I'll be on a mid-term, I hope they somehow discover this handtyped note and realize that there is nothing brilliant about me. And then I hope they fail their midterms.

 Without further ado, I present to you my LV/H8 post (of the week? month? season?), dedicated fully to Andrew's specific recent H8: commercials.

 Hate #3: Radio commercials.

 I have never owned an Ipod or even an MP3 player. The closest thing I ever had was my old Juke phone (a phone that I have once more), but I only used it when taking baths. I mostly listen to music only when driving, and for that I have about 20 or so of my particularly favorite CDs, and when I get bored with those, local radio stations. The radio is a very foreign world that does not seem to have grown or upgraded even slightly in the twenty years since I was a child, but in between all the odd screaming DJs and prank calls and contests and celebrity interviews is the thing least foreign and most comforting to us listeners: commercials! We all know the commercial drill and have learned to tune them out on TV, but there's something about radio commercials that I can never get over, or forgive.

 

 Most radio commercials don't seem to realize that they're on the radio. I've heard multiple commercials that sounded like exact copies of TV commercials, except without the visual supplement, resulting in a frenzy of sound effects and dialogue that makes zero sense unless you're either familiar with the brand or product, or have seen the TV commercial. It's pure laziness. Engaging a potential customer through audio only is an entirely different ballgame than engaging them through visual stimulation, but unfortunately it seems that most advertising agencies simply come up with one idea and tweak it only minimally to stick it on the radio. However, to supplement the audio-only approach, the strategy seems to be to come up with wild and crazy voices that are more grating than engaging. If I want to hear a shrill harpy, I'll go visit my mother - there's no need to unleash a cacophony of obnoxious voices just because I can't see the faces. There's absolutely nothing about radio commercials I like. They infuriate me. I H8 them.



 Hate #2: "Too cool" commercials.

 Blame it on Old Spice. There was an Old Spice ad campaign that began last year, if I'm not mistaken, in which a muscled gentleman randomly hops from scene to scene doing bizarrely manly and cool things because he uses Old Spice, or something along those lines. The original commercials were a bit odd and I wasn't a big fan of them, but they were original enough to be memorable at least. Unfortunately, this set of commercials has inspired some trend that only Dairy Queen is shameless enough to plagiarize blatantly; a trend I've dubbed "too cool" commercials.

 "Too cool" commercials showcase a narrator talking directly to the audience about how very cool and how very amazing they are, insinuating that the advertised product is what makes them so inimitably flawless. Even with Old Spice, the connection is ludicrous and everyone knows the product has nothing to do with how supercilious the narrators are. There's no drive to buy the product because the selling point is that if you do buy it you'll be as cool as these caricatures are, who we all know really aren't cool because we're laughing at them. It's as though we're being pushed to drive a product that will only make us a laughingstock who thinks they're better than they are... and why would I possibly need to buy something to be that way??? I don't understand the concept of these commercials, and the Dairy Queen ones especially make me want to go and pop young field mice on the head in an uncontrolled fit of rage.



 Hate #1: Gum commercials.

 I know it may be difficult, but in just a moment I'm going to ask you to stop reading this blog. I want you to take a moment and reflect upon why you do or do not like gum. What is it that makes you chew it (or not), what are some things you look for when you buy gum, where do you chew gum, why do you chew gum, etc, etc? Stop and think about that now.

 Okay, ready to go? I don't know for you exactly what you think about gum (but you do now!), but for me, I chew gum because I need to erase a flavor or smell from my mouth, because I want something minty or fruity, because it gives my mouth something to do when I can't be talking incessantly, or because I need to get revenge on someone by use of the classic Gum in the Hair method. There is nothing in my motivations for chewing gum that has to do with social acceptance, with the way I feel or perceive myself, or with how awesome I am. Yet gum commercials prey upon those motivations and I cannot for the poor little life of me UNDERSTAND WHY!!!!

 

 The Five brand of gum is the biggest offender in this category. Their commercials depict people in futuristic test labs doing amazing things like flying and floating and being generally modern and awe-inspiring. The commercials claim that chewing their gum is akin to these random Mission Impossible-esque scenes, a claim that is both nonsensical and obnoxious. When does gum make anyone feel this way? Why would anyone want to feel this way when chewing gum? What happened to the simple appeal of showcasing the gum's flavor, how long it lasts, or how impossible it is to get out of enemies' hair? I don't know anyone who chews gum because of how awesome chewing the gum is, or how awesome it will make them. But if you do find someone like this who these commercials would apparently work on, please let me know. So I can stick some gum in their hair.

  

 
  LOVE: Local commercials.

 It seems like it was a few years ago when local businesses discovered the empowering process of advertising their businesses on real cable channels. I won't pretend to know the simplicity of such technological advances that made this possible, but I will revel in it and doff my hat to those who came up with the plan. The only local anything that people watch is the local news, which is broadcast on major channels, whose commercial blocks are bought up by national companies. Local channels were an ineffective way of advertising, but when local providers got smart and offered up commercial space for local vendors on cable channels, the world as we knew changed.

 I had heretofore seen only the fewest of local commercials, if any at all, but now I have seen enough to convince me that the world of advertising is not dead. Most local businesses are small and have equally small advertising budgets, so the commercials are unable to showcase flashy graphics or popular music, or even use cameras with any form of quality. Likewise, actors are plucked from within the business or in the back alley, resulting in a hilarious combination of amateur production that is a welcome shock from the sleek and streamlined shows and commercials we've grown accustomed to. I love watching television and having random heart attacks when my senses are assaulted by local commercials: the horrific lighting, bad sound, and acting so terrible is has to be a parody, all are far cries from the national and money-fueled commercials, and that is why I love them so.

 And that, my friends, is my LV and H8: The Commercial-Free Edition. Read it, repost it, talk about it. Or I'll be coming over to your house... with a piece of gum.