To
really appreciate the absolute bullshit world we live in, one need only watch a
football game. That the activity
unfolding before one is both contrived and violent is one thing but to be
bombarded with one inane commercial after another is testament to a system
designed to cajole and to entice one into buying useless shit. The great American pastime is a testament to
violence and excess. That underlying our
world is subtle reminders how far we have digressed overtime, or how we haven’t
progressed at all.
Let us
take the Bud Light commercial that ends with the tag, “it’s only weird if it
doesn't work. “ Isn't that a great argument for superstition? So in the 21st Century we have
some brain trust informing us that if you act like a total asshole and your
team happens to score that it is best if you continue that behavior because
that may just be deciding factor in the game.
It is amazing that this asinine proposition actually made it through
commonsense editing, and making the absurd ridiculous is to witness how many
times it is actually repeated. It is
hard to believe that any moron would actually believe it would work, so why air
it at all. That some advertising ass can
present some logical if not cute explanation and defense of this spot does not
diminish the fact that it is only an ignoramus who would judge it to be effective,
not withstanding the focus group of Neanderthals who judge it effective.
That
there should be some law to make these gnomes of public persuasion conform to
some standards is far from becoming a reality given the idiots who are in the
majority in Congress who feel any curtailment of stupidity in society smacks of
socialism. Yet, there should be some
common sense approach to advertising to at least limit the promotion of illegal
behavior. At the top of the list of
advertisers that should be reined in are car companies and their devious
promoters. There is hardly a car company
that doesn't promote reckless and irresponsible driving. While one might see these spots as some goofy
representation of a particular car, we must not discount the absolute idiocy of
the viewership. Take the beer commercial
and superstition or the erection commercials and the subtle messages that
stupid works and age has nothing to do with physical attraction. In the former case, anyone believing that
throwing cheese doodles in the air helps a team or if he thinks it cute might
be susceptible to trying to race his small car to a stop and execute an
one-eighty degree turn especially if he has consumed a half bottle of vodka so
that he might attract a bevy of fashionable models. The medium is the message and the message is
that a great majority either enjoys or tolerates countless minutes of bullshit.
That
these mind numbing messages are repeated with such frequency as to permanently
scar our brain tissue demonstrates that those who produce and buy this crap
understand the human psyche. That they
would use this knowledge for no other purpose than to promote that which is, in
the short and long run, detrimental to the human condition signals the
direction the 21st century has taken. Two of the major conditions facing this
nation are diet related diseases and alcoholism, add to that violence and you
have a society in a precipitous decline.
Our national pastime glorifies all of that. I am no saint nor am I immune from the
national pastime. I am but one among the
millions, yet I refuse to endorse this never ending stream of bullshit. I refuse to think that a pill and an
erection, a can of beer and some stupid ritual, produces anything positive in
my life. I think all this tells me that
progress and evolution have not eliminated the more deleterious characteristics
of a species. That advertising agencies
continue to apply their knowledge of our behavior to our base instincts, that a
sixty minutes game is expanded to three hours so the mind shapers can bombard
us with their subtle and devious messages tells us that the forces that govern
our world are designed for purposes that are as base and raw as the televised
event. The unreal world of bullshit
engulfs our humanity and renders us as little more than fools. One need only to look at the crowds in the
stadiums to confirm that observation.
