I’ve seen others recently, but the two I saw today are a Capital One commercial and a Progressive commercial.
In the first, the Capital One guy is talking to a couple of people. He is asked what he does for fun, and he does not know what to say. Then, they cut to him getting ready to sleep at the bank.
Another is the Progressive commercial where Flo talks with another woman about vacations. The other woman doesn’t seem to know what a vacation is. Flo begins describing what one is. In the end, she says she doesn’t really know, gives up, and says she’s never been on one either.
I was thinking about them while driving and came to the title thought.
Home Depot ad earlier literally said “Earn your Sunday”
There was one cellphone company advertising WFH, as work from highway. I vomited in my mouth a little to think that companies would absolutely try and make my commute more “productive” rather than let me work from home.
Me: Oh, I don’t have a personal driver. I need to focus on the road. I don’t even put the radio on. Do you have ANY idea how many idiots are out there on the road looking at their phones, driving into oncoming traffic? You know they did a study and found that drivers who text and drive are actually 3x more dangerous than drunk drivers? It makes sense though. A drunk driver sees the road, but reacts late. A distracted driver isn’t even looking. So I gotta watch the road at all times! I even carry a shotgun in the drivers seat just to shoot out their tires. Yeah! That wakes them the fuck up. Once you disable a tire, it’s stupidly easy to perform a pitt manuever. Then when they spin out, you pull the driver out of their car at gunpoint, hogtie them with zipties. Load them into the back of your van, and then tickle their feet until they agree to never drive distracted again. Really hammer home the point that is why this is happening to them. Some people use a horn, I use a feather. It’s so absurd that they never do it again.
Wait, I got off track. What were we talking about? Oh, right. You want me to start being a distracted driver on my way to work! You wait right here, I’ll be right back with a shotgun, a few dozen zip ties, and a feather. Be right back!
There was a story a couple of years ago about corporations trying to get people to work unpaid hours while working from home. The logic, such as it was, went like this: if you live an hour’s commute away from work and you work an 8-hour day, then you’re actually spending 10 hours of your day dedicated to work because the travel time isn’t time you get to do whatever you want in. Therefore, since you’re used to work taking up 10 hours of your time, you should also spend 10 hours working while working from home.
It’s astonishing, really.
They got so close…
We’ll work towards that, I promise but let’s start with them paying for my commute and we’ll go from there.
No way would they want to compensate people for their commute. Externalize costs, internalize profits.
The propaganda goes deep. Listen to country song lyrics, and what they are actually saying, convincing working class people to keep working, and buy alcohol, and not question reality.
Somehow I’m not surprised that the music genre attributable to poor rural white folk is heavy on boot licking, especially considering how many voted for Trump.
It’s striking how much better country was when they had class consciousness
Edit: no pun intended
Tyler Childers gets it. You just gotta stay away from the shit that airs on the radio.
Country music is just as commercial as any other music these days. Nashville is a machine that pumps out corporate friendly garbage.
I don’t think it’s propaganda. The music and the ads too are just trying to do a “fellow kids” move, and that’s what they’re seeing. Because that’s what we’ve become.
It’s like seeing a mirror and getting spooked by how disheveled the person in it looks.
It’s like seeing a mirror and getting spooked by how disheveled the person in it looks.
Don’t judge me! I turned the camera app on, and didn’t realize it was going to start with the front facing camera! I got spooked!
And drive their trucks on the highway
As recently as the 90s you had mainstream country acts releasing songs like “Pass it on Down” and “We Shall Be Free”
And they got a ton of play on the radio. The former hit number 3 on the billboard country charts. The latter hit number 12 on the country charts.
Then again, the lackluster performance of “We Shall Be Free,” particularly considering the megastardom of Garth Brooks at the time, was due to some stations boycotting it for the line “when we’re free to love anyone we choose.”
But even then, there wasn’t a massive company that owned most of the radio dial back then, so boycotts had limited influence.
as an amateur musician, #12 does not feel lackluster. #100 feels like a life goal.
It’s low for Garth Brooks in the 90’s, but I get what you’re saying.
the height of my musical career was either getting paid in tacos instead of money or getting paid in spaghetti instead of money.
i’m not complaining, i fucking love tacos. and spaghetti (though i’m more partial to cavatappi) i’m just trying to give a sense of what skill level amateur musician i am.
How depressing.
I was relieved during the early stages of the pandemic when I stopped seeing the sick? Take drugs and go to work! advertisements around, but we’re back there now
What!?! Where was that a thing? Who would pay for that? Who would even want to be associated with that message?
Probably the company making the drugs lol
“Got the flu? Pissing out your ass? Take some fucking DayQuil™ you lazy whore, get back to work.”
Forget commmercials. Most people I know/met lately seem to think anyone who isn’t working 60-80 hour weeks is a ‘loser’.
working 30-40 hours now is considered ‘lazy’.
Not by me! I work my 40 and the rest goes my family. I’m lucky I can get by with 40.
Their breath smells of boot
I think it’s fine to work 60-80 hours a week if you’re in a place in your life where you don’t have anyone to go home to and you can actually make more money off it (either as a contractor with an hourly rate, or a business owner). Not for long though, because it gets lonely.
Most people shouldn’t work more than 40 though. Definitely if you have a family, go home and spend time with them. There’s a saying in my language that translates to “work doesn’t run away from you”, as in, there will always be more work to do, but your toddler won’t always be a toddler.
I don’t even wanna do 30 a week. That’s over a full day of time i could use for myself if i didn’t need fucking money so badly. Those 60-80 willingly people are fucking nutso
I had the exact same thought. I get the intent, it’s a “hello fellow kids, we understand you!” but the fact that there are so many people in that situation to make it relatable is already depressing enough without making it sound like it’s the normal everyone should just accept.
That isn’t even the message, the message is “our workers don’t have lives because they are so dedicated”.
Its not something to accept, but aspire to.
Did you see those LinkedIn commercials from a couple years ago that were about children looking for jobs on the site, talking about “getting a headstart” or some shit?
I notice more and more ads just try to be my friend.
They don’t advertise anything about their product, I have nfi what they do. They’re just trying to align with me in the weirdest generic way.
“This is Sam. Sam works hard every day. Sam likes their family. Sam laughs with their friends. Sam enjoys a movie on the couch with their partner. Sam uses Product1234.”
I first noticed this tactic specifically aiming at women. They just show footage of girls doing girl things and the product is there. What does the product do? Why is it worth my money? What makes it better than other ones? Who the fuck knows?
But now that seems to be the same targeting for men just as much, if not more.
Like, this shit is happening and apparently working when it should be making people feel massively patronised and insulted.
it makes you laugh at salad.
The dressing has THC in it
Old news.
🎵 You know we have more prescription drugs now
Every commercial that comes on TV is a prescription drug ad
I can’t watch TV for four minutes without thinking I have five serious diseases
Like: “Do you ever wake up tired in the mornings?”
Oh my god, I have this! Write this down. Whatever it is, I have it
Half the time I don’t even know what the commercial is:
There’s people running in fields or flying kites or swimming in the ocean
Like: "That is the greatest disease ever. How do you get that?
That disease comes with a hot chick and a puppy." 🎶
We don’t really get drug and insurance stuff in my country like the US. Product1234, if it can actually be determined, is often some sort of web service that helps by doing something “all in the one place” or some shit.
But as I said, often literally nfi. Like maybe their plan is to have their isolating commercial cause me to go to the effort of Googling them.
I do find US ads funny, though. Its like they’re made by non-humans trying to do humans. Fake children laughter, soft voices, lots of smiles and well-ironed light clothes. Often ends with a slightly slow-mo shot of someone turning to camera and smiling, like that person has anything to do with anything and I know them, a voiceover trying to me like, “Because we’re in this together” or some weird shit.
Like, “Wow. I didn’t know Super United Allied Mega Insurance cared.” sniffle
i miss interesting commercials. modern commercials, not so much.
OMFG that’s great! We never got cool ads like that in America. Too racy.
Ads don’t need to make you explicitly go out to buy the product to be effective. All they need to do is make you feel more familiar with the brand next time they and a competitor are next to each other in the store, and you need to decide which one to pick.
TL;DR: For stuff you’ll need to buy anyway, brand awareness is all the ad needs to do.
A lot of people claiming advertising doesn’t work on them don’t grasp this. I realized how hard it is to get around this when I first went to buy car insurance.
I would love to ditch my car insurance company, but my discount from being with them so long makes their quotes the lowest. I’ve looked several times over my life.
But now that seems to be the same targeting for men just as much, if not more.
sigh
Advertising to men is super easy, barely an inconvenience! Just show a big tittied blond bimbo saying “Hehehehe, guys who drink this disgusting product will get their dick sucked by girls like me!!!”
Sales SKYROCKET!!! Just throw some fine print that guys won’t actually get their dick sucked. Their eyes won’t be at the bottom of the screen. They’ll be in the middle. Watching big boobs in a bikini.
if there’s too much boobage they might miss the product. it’s a fine line to toe
Youre right about the toe thing. Some guys are in the foot clan.
Which product were you talking about? I dont think you mentioned it.
Remember the Bill Gates / Seinfeld ad campaign? I’ve always known that came too soon. Keep people entertained and emotionally satisfied, while stuffing your brand in their face, and they will buy your brand.
This describes popular politics pretty well too.
I think the future will be AI-generated show-vertisements on our parlor walls. Our Family will know what’s best for us and tells us what’s best.
Commercials exist solely to convince you to spend money. Turning to commercials for life advice is gonna give you a bad life
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I’ve seen some of those while out and about. In the first place I have a long gap, often months, between seeing commercials (and thanks to Lemmy for being part of what makes that possible). It feels like they are advertising the high that comes from sleep deprivation. That’s not being locked in, it’s killing yourself.
They’re pushing for more and more. All the recent talk about increasing the retirement age. The idea that being a stay-at-home mother is somehow oppressive and bad, and the solution is two parents working is actually better.
The idea that being a stay-at-home mother is somehow oppressive and bad
Orthodox Conservatives can’t seem to square that circle. You’re supposed to be a hustler, bringing in those bags, living the ultra-shiekh lifestyle with the 2.3 kids and the Mega-McMansion and the expensive cars and clothes and whatever the fuck else. But then you’re also supposed to be this very humble, folk-of-the-earth religious traditionalists with a one-income household and a giant quiver-full of kids and a military career and also I guess you’re supposed to grow your own corn or some shit?
Everything’s just optics. Nothing is real. When push comes to shove, you aren’t supposed to exist at all. Other people are supposed to stare at an AI facsimile if you and be jealous of how well it is doing at everything.
Who TF watches commercials?
Haven’t seen one in decadesExactly, there was a social contract where we would exchange watching ads for consuming the following product without additional charges. Those days are mostly gone and you have to pay to get in the door, watch and ad and the product has enshitifies to the point of usually not being worth it. Ad block and cable cutting has been a method to claw that back to a fairer exchangr, or atleast give the consumer some negotiation power in that dynamic. However its just created a game of cat and mosue between those who wish to consume your attention and people who dont want sponsored shit beamed into their brain space.
Work-life balance is super subjective (what works well for one person may be debilitating for another) - and using it to make weird jokes like this is probably alienating for many in their audience. Poor choice all around.
It is individual but its also cultural. Many in Europe and Canada look at work life balance in the US and see it as toxic, for example.
I was shocked to find out many women don’t get more than 3 months maternity leave (FMLA) in the US and it may be unpaid. That’s a dystopian work life balance compared to other high income countries.
In Canada, women get 9 months paid leave and most end up going back to their old job. In the US I find many women come back in 3 months because they have no choice (accepting the psychological burden that comes with this) or they switch to part time work which can put their health care coverage at risk (extremely problematic since they just had a baby).
I find the American system to be fundamentally misogynistic.
I personally find the thinking on this is too rigid. I get putting boundaries in place so people are not abused. But it isn’t a moral failure of a person if they don’t fit into this box. I work a ton, but it is from home, with family, and supported by a stay at home husband. It isn’t right for everyone, and people should be protected from this if it isn’t right for them - but there isn’t anything wrong with it. Likewise, my maternity leave was 8 weeks, because I was ready to work and my work situation allowed for it. The American system is absolutely misogynistic, but the fundamental problem underneath both issues that we have managed to get ourselves into an economic situation that requires a two income household or to work a crazy amount.
