Sunday, February 9, 2014

McDonald's and the Olympics: Bite This.


         
         
The funniest moment of this 30 seconds of dumb is where we see a family gathered around the television set cheering something that just happened in the Olympic Games, this year being staged in a prison camp just a few thousand miles west of Siberia.

Yes, NBC and McDonald's, this is for sure happening all over the country.  People are glued to their couches because the Winter Olympics is on and everyone knows how much Americans love the Winter Olympics.  The ratings suck?  Well, that's because Americans are so obese from consuming non-food like Chicken McNuggets they can't get off those couches to turn their tvs on.

I won't bother to ask when McDonald's is going to actually spend some real money to produce commercials which actually make sense and sell their product, because I'm pretty sure that's never going to happen.  Instead, I'll save my question for NBC- when the hell are you and the other networks going to figure out that in a nation where the average person has access to dozens if not hundreds of television channels, not to mention the internet, nobody gives a flying damn about the Olympic Games anymore?  How many more billions of dollars are you going to invest in securing the coveted rights to broadcast a moss-covered relic whose popularity peaked in the 80s and hasn't been at all relevant since the Cold War ended?

It's not that Jingoism is out of style.  Jingoism will never go out of style.  It's that there aren't any real rivalries anymore.  You think anyone gives a damn how many medals the US accumulates compares to the Russians?  You think anyone is setting their DVRs to make sure they don't miss a moment of US-USSR hockey?  Earth to the networks: It's over.  Nobody cares.  We aren't watching- and no, it's not because we want the terrorists to win.  It's because we recognize that we are living in the freaking 21st century.  When are you going to join us here?

4 comments:

  1. It really bugs me to read articles and see news coverage that focuses almost exclusively on events where the US does well, and where the US stands in the "medal count." As though the only thing that matters is how the USA does.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, that's all that matters until we get to the next Very Touching Personal Story of Achievement in the Face of Adversity, Right after this Commercial for Lexus.

      Delete
  2. What really sucks is that the host country always takes a bath hosting the damned thing owing to the whole 'being stuck with relics that Albert Speer would call uselessly titanic" thing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh yeah- the horribly crowded, poverty-stricken, desperate city of Rio gets it's turn to host this Glorification of the Few Best We Can Do Until The Hunger Games Is Real waste of time and absolutely tragic waste of money which is amazingly available when it's time to build a temporary-use stadium but not for a hospital or school.

      Delete