H8/LV The Triumphant Return

              I used to work at a summer camp and one (horrible) job that took up much of the summer was filling up water balloons. This is tedious, soul-crushing work that involves sitting on a milk crate next to a faucet, filling up a balloon to the proper size, tying off the balloon, throwing it into a trash can full of water, and telling yourself, "Only 1,199 left to go." This is the epitome of mind-numbing and has recently been ruled as torture by the Obama administration. However, this was back in the heady fast and loose Bush years when unpaid menial labor was thought to build character and many an afternoon was spent in front of the faucets, theorizing on how hell had to be better than our current situation. When you place a handful of teenage males in proximity to that many water balloons for that long of a time, creativity is bound to occur. One source of near constant amusement was the competition to see who could fill up a water balloon the biggest size and still tie it off. This leads to constantly pushing the boundaries - seeing just how much water could fit inside of a balloon, just how far the skin of the balloon could stretch, and inevitably to the bursting of the balloon, splashing all nearby but thoroughly soaking the person trying to fill it.

              The balloon is my silence. The water is my hatred. This blog is the explosion. 

H8#1: Pepsi

             Pepsi tastes disgusting. It tastes like Coke, if you mixed Coke with Splenda and left it sitting open on a table for a few days. If I go to a restaurant and ask for Coke, and they say, "Is Pepsi okay?" I slowly unroll the silverware, select the salad fork, stab the server through the hand, and run out screaming, "OH MY GOD DOES THAT RAT UNDER THE TABLE HAVE HIV?" However, the taste of Pepsi is the least offensive thing about it. The worst thing about it is it's (and I'm anthropomorphisizing here, but bear with me) pathetic neediness and desperate attempts to be as good as Coca-Cola. Imagine a guy going through high school - he's handsome, popular, athletic, smart, extremely nice, generous, and tastes like Coke. His brother is a few years younger and in the same high school. The younger brother is hideously ugly, vandalizes the school, gets straight Fs, beats up mentally handicapped students, attempts to rape the teachers, and tastes like Pepsi. On top of all of this, the younger brother constantly claims that everyone really likes him, and that his older brother is trying to be like the younger brother. 

               Watch any Pepsi commercial. Pepsi's entire ad campaign is, "Man, Coke wishes they were Pepsi! No, like seriously. Coke just sits around all day and thinks about us and is like, jealous and stuff. Keep trying Coke! You'll never be as good as us!" Pepsi has a series of commercials where Coke and Pepsi vendors compete in weird ways. I remember when Pepsi Vanilla came out and Pepsi had a commercial where a Pepsi Vanilla truck and Vanilla Coke were parked next to one another at a red light, and Coke turned up his radio, trying to show off his speakers. Pepsi presses a button and the sides on his truck fall down, showing huge hidden speakers that start blasting and hydraulics that make his truck start lifting up and down. There's a recent commercial where Pepsi and Coke vendors are attempting to one up one another by setting up displays built from 12 packs of their product. Pepsi wins when he builds a stage that Snoop Dogg (and two skanky dancers) pop out of and Snoop Dogg does some horrible rap along the lines of, "I'm Snoop Doggy-D-O-double G and I drink Peps-I!" The commercial ends with the schlubby Coke vendor (having turned his hat backwards) drinking a Pepsi and dancing to the music. 

                This is so embarrassingly bad for Pepsi. Ask anyone - the guy who constantly talks about how well endowed he is obviously is over-compensating for his lack of goods. By focusing their commercials on how much better they are than Coke, Pepsi is admitting that Coke is better than they are. Not only that, but their idea of cool is big speakers, hydraulics, and Snoop Dogg? 

               Pepsi's latest super-creative marketing ploy is to co-opt Coca-Cola's marketing icons and show them switching to Pepsi because, "Summertime is Pepsi time!" There are billboards around my town that show a dorky Santa Claus wearing a floral pattern Hawaiian shirt and standing on the beach, Pepsi in hand. There's a commercial on TV where a yacht pulls up to an iceberg to pick up polar bears and ride off with them as they party and drink Pepsi. Coke has been using Santa in their ads for EIGHTY YEARS. It must be nice to work in the advertisement department at Pepsi. All you have to do is watch a Coke commercial, tweak it slightly, and end with, "We're better!" Boom. Paycheck. On top of how stupid the ad is, it's actually insulting to the drink that it's trying to sell! What is the message of the Coca-Cola Santa drawings? Coke is all-American, Coke is enjoyed by everyone, even Santa. What is the message of the Pepsi Santa ad? Well yeah, Santa drinks Coke in the winter but during the summer he likesto try a Pepsi. A multi-billion worldwide company uses this as their primary ad campaign? 

Assy

Classy

Pepsi I hate you so much.

Hate #2: Commercials

             This is dovetailing off of my hatred for Pepsi, but it deserves it's own laser focused beam of hatred. I understand the need for commercials, and I don't hate the fact that they exist. I get to listen to the radio for free, listen to podcasts for free, get tons of online content for free, and get to watch good television for a small cost. I expect ads, and people who create content need to get paid. I love the show Mad Men and it's interesting to see the advertising firm attempt to come up with new ways to sell products. Every now and then I'll see a commercial that's genuinely witty, or effective, or at least non-offensive. I appreciate these. You have a product to sell, my eyeballs are on the TV, so say your piece and go away. However, those who work in the creative side of these marketing departments often feel the need to try and be clever, or funny, or memorable - which more often than not results in abject failure. Most people tune out during commercials, but if you actually watch them and try to make sense of them or break them down and actually figure out the punchline, they're horrible. I saw one yesterday that has some woman drinking New 100% Natural Lipton Bottled Iced Tea. As she drinks it her body (clothes included) turns clear, filled with clear liquid that has leaves or something floating in it. This makes no sense (especially as tea isn't clear) but then she climbs onto the back of a moped, clutching her boyfriend and riding down the street, clear body, helmeted (of course) head, and a flesh colored smiling face. The extremely unpleasant visual is followed by the tag-line: "You are what you tea." What. The. Hell? 

                 Let's apply 20 quick seconds of logic to this tagline, which is far more than was used by the team that created it, the gatekeepers that approved it, and the crew that made the commercial. The original saying is, "You are what you eat." This could easily (and logically) be changed to, "You are what you drink." If you wanted to make a play on words, you could even go so far as (in some commercial about staying in school or something), "You are what you think." All of this makes sense. "You are what you tea," on the other hand, makes no sense whatsoever. "Tea" isn't a a verb, unless you're talking about teeing up a golf ball or telling your child to go tee-tee. Creepy visuals plus a retarded tag line? Sounds like a winner to me! I'd much rather just have a commercial that simply says, "Lipton's New Natural 100% Ice Tea" and show someone drinking some in a field or something. It's simple and plain and never going to win an award for Best Commercial Ever, but it communicates everything it needs to. Let's aim a little lower, people. The TV shows are for our entertainment, commercials are to inform us of products. 

Hate #3: Riots

                Obviously the London Riots have been in the news lately. Buildings that have existed for hundreds of years, even withstood the Blitz, have been burned down by rioters. There are many arguments to be had about the causes of the riots and some of them are quite compelling, but I'm not here to parse that out. I'm here to say that I hate rioters. Rioters are disgusting sackless animals who are too cowardly to show their faces and stand up for what the believe in, but instead use numbers and anonymity to cause chaos, steal things, and destroy property. I have much more respect for someone who walks into a bank, pulls out a gun, and robs the place than I do for a rioter. I'm sure it's very easy to get in a big group of people, knowing you outnumber law enforcement, and smash things, beat people, and do whatever you want. Is that what people would really be like if there were no laws? Whenever I'm watching one of those, "Word's Most Insanest Videos!" shows and they show a riot, I just want Police to go in with machine guns and bombs and kill everyone. The only reason rioters attack the Police is because they know the Police are better people than they are - the Police have guns, but the rioters know the cops will refuse to use them. Rioters are useless horrible people and they draw their strength from the fact that there are a ton of other people behind them and they can immediately run and hide. If you had one of these assholes by themselves they'd immediately cave and start begging for mercy. 

              Civilization is a construct. It isn't a real thing. Civilization is an agreement. It isn't a solid state. I went to a Braves game this past week. It was a Tuesday evening so there weren't a ton of people there, but even so we all out numbered the Police and Security at least 12 to 1. If we were all brainless animals we could rush the field, kill the players, steal everything in the stadium, and set it on fire. We literally could not be stopped. But we don't - because we are buying into this thing called civilization and trying to make it work. There are plenty of reasons people have to be angry, but we're trying to move to a point where we don't solve our problems with violence. We still have to sometimes, we're not to the ideal point yet, but there's using violence to bring down your government and install a new one, and then there's using violence to hurt those around you with no goal or purpose. What pisses me off the most about rioters is that they aren't awful people or habitual criminals. They are citizens that we interact with every day, who suddenly find themselves caught up in fervor and anonymity and allow their animal side to take over. It's terrifying and revolting and I think rioters should be punished harshly (and all made to cry). We're trying to move forward here people, we really don't need you.

Love: To Hate Glee

              I've been building up so much hatred that I need to continue to expunge it so I don't get an ulcer. I've been building up love as well (I'm a truly happy guy, that falls in love quickly, and falls out of love rarely, with any one and any thing) but I like to hold on to those feelings and get rid of these others. So, I love to hate Glee. Let me establish a pretty important fact: I've never seen a single episode of Glee. Last year, while sitting in a Washington D.C. hotel during a rainstorm, I saw the very end of one episode, but I remember literally nothing about it except people were singing a song. Glee could possibly be a fantastic show - I'll admit I sort of like the concept. There is a new Glee culture though, and that's what makes me hate the show. The mere term, "Gleek" sends steam (literally. I am in no way exaggerating) shooting from my ears, destroying the carefully manicured hair of the women around me. Glee is like Betty White - I kind of assumed everyone thought it was silly and stupid but harmless, but then realizing how much everyone loved it (and her) I had no choice but to hate, in order to try and balance out an unjust universe. I don't mind Glee's gay-accepting anti-bullying we're-all-in-this-together message (I'm assuming this is the message, though I've never seen the show) but there's something precocious about the show, and something deeply disturbing about the amount of passion with which it's fans adore it. Without exaggeration I can easily proclaim that there is nothing more downright creepy in culture today than anyone over the age of 16 who willfully calls themselves a "fan" of Glee. I feel without question that Glee has left a lasting stain of twee stupidity on all corners of our current society. I present to you, an article from the Parenting magazine I found in our mailbox yesterday:

     I hope my son isn't a bully, but if a kid comes to his school dressed like that on a normal school day I also hope that he bullies the hell out of him. No child would dress like that on their own but only because their mom decided to use him as a paper doll. The sooner he discovers that there is such a thing as shame, the sooner he can start building the decision making abilities that will aid him later in life. Glee, go away. Take your stupid failing 3D movie, your live tour, your soundtracks that are nothing but covers of far more talented people's music, and go far far away. If the world ends and we all turn into massive homophobes that are unable to dress our children for preschool or converse around a water cooler then, and only then, will you be allowed to return. 

          Glee. Good Lord, what has this country become?