I've got one finger for you, FingerHut

 

This just may be the most aggressively stupid commercial I've ever seen, and it's just barely tolerable if you don't watch it with the sound on.  No, let me take that back; it's not tolerable even with the sound off.  If you keep it muted AND dim the TV to the point where the screen is black, now we're talking.

This whole awful pile of steaming trash features a bunch of people with poor credit celebrating the fact that they've found a company willing to sell them stuff at high interest rates, drawing them in with the promise that this will help them "build credit."  "Building Credit," according to Fingerhut, means Buying Things on Credit.  Is "paying your bill on time, every time" included in this little lesson being given to children in adult bodies who should have learned how to control their spending a long, long time ago?  Don't know- because it's on mute- but I seriously doubt it.  I mean, come on- if these morons knew how to handle their money properly, they wouldn't be orgasmic over the ability to buy a lawn mower, and they wouldn't be going wild with joy over buying dozens of other things (like all that grill gear) that they don't really need.  Seems to me that these people don't really need to be told the joy of buying on credit, because they experienced that quite some time ago and it's exactly why they are suckers for come-ons from Fingerhut, everyone's favorite warehouse for overpriced garbage that people with decent credit - or, god forbid, CASH- buy at regular stores.  What they need is a cold, hard slap in the face and a reminder that Fingerhut- like every other company that extends credit- isn't in the business of loaning money and not getting it back.  That lawn mower you're having so much fun with needs to be paid for, you stupid woman.  That grill that lets you pretend that you're in the stable middle class for your neighbors has to be paid for too, you pathetic, financially illiterate man.

I'm willing to bet that the production of this commercial was closely tied to the disbursement of stimulus checks over the past 18 months.  A lot of people living paycheck to paycheck- but still working- suddenly found themselves with some extra cash, did a little extra shopping, and found that they really enjoyed the sensation of being able to buy something without putting off an electric bill payment or dodging the Rent A Center Repo guy.  Now that the extra money has run out, these people are desperate to hold on to that illusion of prosperity goosed by the $2000 or so which just fell out of the sky last year.  Their credit rating is still in the toilet, so Fingerhut is their only option if they want to keep Spending and Pretending.  Just a theory from someone who- Thank Heavens for a Stable Career- has never gone near Fingerhut, Aaron's, Rent A Center or any other dealer of  Temporary Pain Killers for Poor People. 

This Serena Williams/Streaming Video/Whatever Commercial celebrates America's dwindling attention span

 

I used to enjoy going to movies, but I very rarely do anymore.  I've probably been in an actual movie theater less than a dozen times this century.  And it's not because going to a movie is only slightly less expensive than attending a major league baseball game.  It's because I can't remember the last time I was able to watch an entire film without being distracted by someone's glowing cell phone, inexplicably pulled out because (I guess) the movie just couldn't hold the viewer's attention (or, more likely, desperate need for new stimulus generated by electronics-induced Attention Deficit Disorder.)

I assume it costs significantly more to attend a professional tennis match.  Yet if I read this commercial correctly, the people in the crowd who paid big bucks to watch Serena Williams hit a ball simply don't find the action on the court compelling enough and are scrolling through their devices to find horror movies, cartoons, ANYTHING ELSE to distract them from the sporting event they paid to witness.  Which kind of makes me wonder why they are there.  Just like I wonder why the person sitting two rows down from me paid $15 or more to sit in a dark room with total strangers and play with their f---ng phones.  Give me a break.  Please.

Taco Bell was the best choice of evils here

 

As near as I can figure from watching this commercial no less than a dozen times over the course of two baseball playoff games yesterday, here is the storyline:  

A very pretty girl is at one of those cliche'd parties at the beach featuring irresponsible young people sitting around a fire drinking beer.  Maybe it's because I live on the East Coast and have never been to a West Coast beach after dark, but I've never seen this in real life.  I've never been to a beach which allows fires or alcohol at any time of day.  But whatever, I see this enough on television to convince me that somewhere there are beaches that allow this, and these young people are at least not breaking the law.  They are just being asshats who are more than likely to leave burning embers and empty beer bottles and other trash on the beach when they leave.

Ok, Boomer rant over.  Next we see a typical tv greasy Eurotrash wannabee eyeing that very pretty girl and finally making eye contact.  Because this is television, the girl isn't at all weirded out at being stared at by this guy despite the fact I get the strong sense that they aren't a couple (I mean, they aren't sitting next to each other.)  More like when Daniel LaRusso makes eye contact with Ally and won't break it off until she smiles back.  But at least they were just stupid teenagers.  Plus, it was the eighties, and everything was allowed back in the eighties.

Come to think of it, they had an open fire at the beach, too.  So I guess beach fires are just a thing in California.

Anyway, these people who seem to have just met go running into the surf together, and seem on the verge of kissing.  For some reason, a loud gong goes off which I'm guessing is just symbolic- the "gong" is the pretty girl's stomach letting her know that she's hungry (I guess they had alcohol but no snacks in front of that fire.  That's pretty stupid.  There's no end of snacks that go well with beer, kids.)  She dumps the guy to head off to Taco Bell like she's in a trance- like she's one of the Eloi and it's time to give herself to the Morlocks. 

I mean, if the sudden desire for a greasy taco from America's favorite provider of cheap grease and carbs wasn't so irresistible, she might have brought the guy along to pay at least.  And then he'd have more insight into this girl he's into- she likes Taco Bell.  I don't know how he'd translate this- is she just totally tasteless, or is she a cheap date?- but at least she'd still have the five bucks or so she spent on this late-night calorie bomb.  Then again, by dumping Eurotrash she's significantly decreased her odds of ending the night pregnant.  So for once, I applaud the decision to choose Taco Bell.

Hulu has Live TV. Maybe you should turn it off and act Alive yourself?

 

Look, I'm not trying to be (excessively) mean here, but this woman is the last person in the world who should be looking for more excuses to become more and more part of that chair whose springs she's torturing.  How about you sell that chair, cancel your Hulu (and Netflix, and Amazon Prime, and heck- while we're at it, Cable) and use that money to buy yourself a Peloton Bike or maybe a gym membership?  You know, before you succumb to diabetes, heart disease, or any number of ailments that are all but inevitable if you insist on being a couch potato zombie looking for excuses to avoid moving?

A commercial of the Weird Kind

 

So a person waiting at the airport decides to have a snack and pulls a Kind Bar out of her bag.  She takes a bite and two things happen:

First, she's so inspired that she imagines herself establishing World Peace.  

Second, she can't remember what her name is.  

I don't know- if taking a bite out of Kind Bar causes severe memory loss, I don't care how good it tastes.  I'm not eating it!

Death Wish Coffee and Capitalism: Because "Off the Clock" is such a 20th Century Concept

 

Never mind the fact that this commercial features the abuse of a lowly employee at the hands of her demanding, slave-driving boss.  I just gotta love how it ends with the lowly employee acting as if she's triumphed over her boss by successfully Jumping when he called to order her to Jump.  You go, girl! 

Workers of the World Unite- if your boss is going to crack the whip and make you work through the wee hours  instead of, oh, you know, respecting the fact that you are an employee and not an indentured servant and you work for a set wage that covers a set amount of time, you should put your foot down and (politely) demand that he stock plenty of Death Wish Coffee so you can stimulate your heart and shorten your life span before you proceed to make him slightly wealthier at the expense of your health.  It's the one Stimulus Package he's willing to provide without bitching about "Socialism" and the death of Free Enterprise, after all.* 

But yeah, enjoy that superior smile.  Short of a decent Union, it's pretty much your only reward for your night of drug-enabled hard work.  Do yourself a favor and don't reflect on the fact that your boss got a good night's sleep, and expects you to put in another hard day's work on another Very Important Project today.  Make sure you've got plenty of Death Wish Coffee for the office Keurig machine. 

*Oh, who are we kidding?  We all know that next to those coffee pods is a jar for the one-dollar-per-cup "contribution" expected of the people who use them.  The boss has his own Keurig machine - which you are not to touch, ever- back in his office. 

Never mind Big Brother. Netflix is watching us now.

 

There's so much off-putting (maybe just plain "gross" is the better way to put it?) here, I hardly know where to begin.  Not a good start, Netflix.

I mean, we are being "treated" to a talking remote control that is angry that this (appropriately yet predictably diverse) couple keeps "pushing it's buttons."  You've got one job, Mr. Remote Control.  If you're bitter that you are constantly having to do your One Job, maybe suicide is a reasonable option.  Can you reach your own battery door to slide it out and remove those batteries?  I think that would do it. 

I guess this is supposed to be cute, but seriously, it isn't at all.  

But then it just gets worse.  The remote has kept close tabs on what this couple is watching, and is willing to turn on one of them to generate conflict.  All these people have is their shared television viewing, so the female is quickly triggered by the discovery that her male significant other is watching television (cheating?) behind her back.  Maybe she thought he was at the gym or doing something about that spare tire he's carrying, like he said he was, instead of being immobile as usual in front of the Idiot Box With 60 Million Hours of Viewing Possibilities.  Seriously, this guy is a chonker and he does NOT need another excuse to spend any more time zombied-out on the couch.  But no, she's just annoyed that he "experienced" god knows how many more hours of some witless Netflix Original Series Garbage without her, like he's having an affair or something.  (Hell, when your relationship revolves around "sharing" TV shows, what's the difference between watching something on your own and having an affair anyway?)

The "happy ending" involves Netflix basically taking their viewing history and just starting them off on another marathon of time-wasting, intimacy-avoiding BS courtesy of everyone's favorite contribution to the obesity and social isolation pandemics.  And all because we think that a streaming "service" that uses complicated algorithms to place us in an endless loop of predictable, non-threatening, non-challenging generic "entertainment" is the triumph of Western Civilization.  Well, at least these people are unlikely to breed, having used up their fertile years on 16 seasons of whatever Carbon Copy Magic Sword Adventure Nonsense Netflix decided they should be watching instead.