pengosolvent

The ads I quickly took notes on are as follows:

1- Ad about resting binge face, for Amazon Prime
The story for this one was that a lot of people weren't able to binge watch content without having Amazon Prime and thus... they were Sad. This was called Resting Binge Face. It's one of those ads that try to be funny? Like a guy shows up and is like I'm A Doctor and I Diagnose you With Sad because Not Enough Things to Watch, or something like this

This one started a bit weirdly to me personally because I feel like if someone is binge-watching things, they're likely internet savvy to a degree that they can... uh... Go on Youtube and find things to watch or be recommended things. Even beyond that, probably go to some free to watch sites.
This is admittedly an assumption though, so it's really not that big of a deal, but it does feel weird because... I dunno, it feels like it's fundamentally trying to appeal to a younger audience that is not JUST growing more and more savvy towards workarounds for paywalled content, but ALSO is the audience who... is struggling a lot financially and getting crunched by a ton of expectations placed on them and subscription services trying to drink all their blood
I'm not a marketing guy, but do adverts like this really ... work?

Anyway, what really gets me about this one, that made me start taking notes on these ads, was how blatant this one was about... "Oh, you're sad? Well, the solution is to keep watching things so your happiness is tied to the media you consume. You NEED media to consume to be happy... Let US be that provider for YOU! Thank you for the money. Joke goes here."

It really felt so... Weird to feel the hook of this advert be "If you're sad and you basically self-medicate via media, we can provide that."

I don't know how to word it other than predatory? Like advertisers using "friendliness" as a skinsuit? I don't really LIKE people trying to encourage me to hitch my happiness onto stories they control that I have to pay to see.
Stories told in media ARE awesome! I love watching things... But... I can spend time digesting what I watched? Integrating what I watched into my life, connecting to that meaning and to others as well?
I think about Jacob Geller's video on the future of writing about games, wherein he talks about the feeling of finishing a game, a sort of emptiness where you go "well, what now?"
His solution is... reading about and discussing the game through a subjective lens! Seeing what others felt, deepening the knowledge one has of the game, what it means to them and why.

This commercial's solution seems to be "Pay us to give you more media so you never have to hit that empty feeling."

Something something, Mildred in Fahrenheit 451, so on.

2- Ad for Mountain Dew wherein a bunch of people want to steal The Dew™ from a train, like modern day bandits

This one was just a bit silly to me in that... The messaging is like... "People love Mountain Dew so much that they're willing... to Steal it. Also, we don't protect our trains at all, I guess."

The story is a small group of people riding bikes see a train chugging along carrying some Sick Cargo of Mountain Dew and so they go land on it and start drinking some of it. Then they look back and one of them goes "We should probably drink these fast" as they see a bunch of OTHER people approaching the same car, presumably with intent to also take all the Dew

Which is... Like... maybe kind of funny if you think of it like they're saying it to highlight an absurdity like "Haha, there's no way we could drink all of these before those people come in and take some, too."

But doesn't really make sense to me from the perspective of... Anything beyond this tiny scope.

I get it's a commercial, so there's no reason for the advertisers to care about the before and after of this tiny snippet of story, yeah? They just care about you thinking Mountain Dew is cool so you buy it?

But... What's the "cool" part of this commercial? Where does that come from...? Oh yeah. It's from STEALING THE SODA.

It's WEIRD to have your commercial BANK ON THE IDEA THAT YOUR AUDIENCE WILL FEEL "This product is so cool" FROM HOW BADLY PEOPLE WANT TO STEAL IT???
You know... Stealing? The thing that doesn't give you profit because it directly involves bypassing the step involving money?

Seriously! If you think about this commercial, the only two things that would make you want to Buy Mountain Dew in it are:
1- It reminds you Mountain Dew exists
2- It shows you a context in which people REALLY like Mountain Dew in an entertaining way: Stealing from a Train

I understand that people won't go out and chance a Mountain Dew heist just from this commercial, but what stands out to me is just... the... sheer... audacity of it?

Think about what the commercial is harkening to: Old western sort of train heists. In placing itself as the riches to be stolen... Presumably held by the villainous rich... It's... wearing a mantle of being a "bad guy" in the language of its own commercial?

Which... I mean, yes that's true. But it's bizarre that the commercial itself is basically not counting on anyone to follow any of the implications of the story its showing you.

It's bizarre how greed is just treated so fragrantly acceptable on every level of this? Steal, then try to hoard as much as you can from others who want the same thing as you.

It's such an ugly window, it's just not really funny to me, it feels like such an empty and vapid world because it begins and ends within the runtime of a commercial and is not meant to hold any deeper thought

But why is that? It's pretty easy to look at what I'm writing and go "Boy, this dude is overthinking it" but, really, think about why a commercial would want people not to think any further!

It's pretty easy to write something when you don't have to think about what it implies, if you can just make sure the viewer takes you completely on face value...

Which might not be so bad with a story trying to be Funny like the two commercials above but.......................

3- The Commercial That Is The Epitome of Don't Worry About It, Please Don't Think So Hard

Commercial starts with a voice over and a bunch of youthful people. "We get how uncertain the future is, face to face with problems we didn't create..."
Ah yes, a real "relatable" "feeling" as the kids say. On the drive to the movies, I had literally been thinking about how stressful everything is lately in part due to the people in power not really caring about longterm sustainability, so there's so much that's been fucked up and it can feel suffocating to feel so little time to fix it.
But this is a commercial we're talking about,

"So what's gonna happen next? We are."
Hum... I guess that's true but--

"The life we have chosen has prepared us for this... We have an appointment of destiny."
Bam, Army national guard

Dude, come on, what the fuck.

"we're in a bunch of shit from people in charge putting us here... So join the army so the ppl in charge can command you even more"
?
????????????????????????

I admit I saw the twist coming, army commercials tend to play to this sort of 'fulfill your dreams' narrative while simultaneously seeming weirdly gritty too, but it is just the most... outright manipulative garbage I've seen in a while

It's just cruel to use emotional manipulation like this. It IS emotional manipulation in that "Man... I really get it. The future is so uncertain, it's not your fault, there's so much that people before you caused..." is genuinely something that can be meaningful for young people to hear if they haven't?
To feel validated in the sea of 'Um, you're not working hard enough'. To be acknowledged and to not feel alone in the feeling...

Just for that acknowledgement to be bait attached to a hook by the very same people who caused a Good Deal of the issues we deal with today.
Even with a little cherry on top, using the concept of Destiny to really really sound good.

I genuinely believe a lot of people today feel purposeless, and having a "destiny" is something that can feel really... nice? Feeling like you know what your life's purpose is, feeling like you have meaning, so on... Invoking this after bringing up how aimless and uncertain people feel is directly linking joining the national guard to having purpose, without actually... caring about the role they've had in the fucking issues they claim to be a solution for

The commercial talks about how you can build houses or something, i don't know, I super checked out. like, yes, the national guard has done some good, it can help in disaster relief, so on, but it's... still controlled by the department of defense who has had such a huge role in worldwide harm

It really feels like... Capitalism loves to play in the skin of what people care about

I hate that commercials are allowed to be predatory
That feelings aren't taken seriously outside of how people can use feelings to sell you something

Emotional literacy is so important because how the FUCK can you protect yourself from manipulation and recognize actual care when day in and day out you're blasted with commercials that try to use friendliness and "care" just to drain your dollar and don't give a shit about you afterwards?
When corporations try to inject themselves into every part of our lives and rewrite what's healthy or 'normal'?

And it's pretty easy to go "well, duh, of course advertisements do that, anyone who falls for it is--"
I don't like that! I don't like that deception is given a pass just because it's fucking common. No, it doesn't have to be this way!!!

Advertising DOESN'T have to be synonymous with trying to fucking emotionally manipulate people.

People are extremely isolated and lonely and in pain, and advertisers going "Wow... We can USE that!" is NOT OK.

It's just... sad to me that this is so... eroding? so everywhere

I grasp that it's not actually sustainable, that even if I don't see these practices go away in my lifetime, it's just not going to survive (infinite profit is just impossible), and that does help me some to think about

but man. MAN.
i really want people to be okay and not constantly devalued, paid less and less, while inundated with noise trying to get their money

it's not healthy for anyone