An apology

I'd like to apologize to anyone mislead by my earlier comments about Superbowl ads. Enough time has passed that I can swallow my pride and finally give this year's crop of commercials the thrashing they deserve.

I like to think that the Superbowl is when the best minds in the advertising business put their ideas to the test. Advertising doesn't have to detract from the television experience, and I think we should relish the opportunity to see those minds at work.

In that regard, this has been a bad year. From Clint Eastwood riding on Eminem's already ragged Detroit coattails to every Doritos commercial ever, the 2012 batch showed a complete lack of inspiration.

The joke about Hollywood that has been floating around is that there are so few good ideas there, that the film industry doesn't do anything but churn out second-rate sequels. It was––and, in my opinion, remains––the same problem Detroit had. American car design over the last 20 years has been abominable.

Clint Eastwood, a Hollywood staple and spokesperson for Detroit, seems to be suffering from those cities' common flaws: heads full of bad ideas and a soft spot for sequels.

Deja-vu

When I saw this, I knew I'd seen something like it before.

Eminem's inspiring original

I can see Clint and some of his buds sitting down, brainstorming this ad. They were probably thinking, "How can we be inspiring, too? And how can we distinguish ourselves from Eminem's ad?" But if your subject is American recovery through the lens of America's hardest-hit city, distinguishing yourself might just be impossible.

Speaking of Detroit, it has always amazed me that so many downright ugly American cars have made it into production. Take the Ford Taurus: How many gatekeepers––designers, engineers, executives––did that sorry soapbox on wheels make it through before going into production? The Taurus designs must have passed through a hundred people, and not one of them spoke up and said, "This car is awful. Don't make it."

A friend with whom I was watching the game had a similar experience with this gem:

Cars.com has gatekeeping problems

With the cost of a 30-second slot during the big game going for millions of dollars, my friend postulated that someone would have identified this ad as a dud. And maybe someone did: He's probably sharing a cell in smart person's prison with the one guy who tried to nix the Ford Taurus and the other guy who said that the V-22 Osprey was stupid and that we should just abandon it.

I hate Doritos ads. You should, too.

Doritos are the game chip of choice. It could be their simultaneously greasy and powdery texture that makes them so appealing. Maybe it's the fact that they go on sale during the Superbowl, or that they even taste good. It's not because of good marketing. 

Being held hostage by your dog is a cute conceit for a television ad, but somehow this one fell flat. Maybe it's because people are tired of seeing fat, unkempt-at-best-looking men on TV––all too often, they're paired with attractive +1s––or maybe it's because there's something patently ridiculous about ignoring your cat's untimely demise for the sake of a small bag of chips. Whatever the cause, this ad went down in my book as the biggest swing, and biggest miss, of the night.

Just say, "Fuck it."

Have you ever held something in your hand that seemed very important, and suddenly felt that the best thing to do at that moment was to destroy it?

Last September or so, I received a thick off-white envelope stuffed with a survey on my career post-graduation. Dutifully filling out the form, I lamented that I'd had several good leads on journalism work but remained unemployed. Then I put it in the mail. At the University of Georgia, someone would tabulate my results and help direct some future journalism school graduate towards a region where work can be found.

My good deed was done for, like, my whole life. Or so I thought.

Yesterday an off-white envelope, again stuffed with the same survey of my post-graduate career, came for me in the mail. There was also a note explaining that my response to the first survey hadn't been received, and if at all possible, I should fill out the questionnaire and submit it to the University of Georgia by post the very next day.

For the last few months, incompetence has hung in the air around me. I had what seemed like a solid job offer from the Idaho State Journal covering the state legislature, only to hear back from my would-be editor that there was no funding available for my position. I very nearly wasn't paid for a feature article I wrote for Business Insider because an invoice for my work was lost in the shuffle and never made it to the payroll office.

You would think that someone else's incompetence would feel like getting a flat tire, and the only appropriate response would be to replace the flat and go on your merry way. Instead it feels like being unfulfilled. Everything is going swimmingly until some little post-related accident or miscommunication chips away at the wholesomeness of whatever it is you're going.

The survey felt almost totemic in my hand: I couldn't give up on the University of Georgia now. My information was desperately needed to help ensure other journalism graduates received training that would serve them in the field, etc.! And that's when the feeling hit me. The right thing to do was to just say, "Fuck it."

To say I tore up that survey would be an understatement. These three stapled sheets of paper were all that stood between me and a clear conscience: Forensic scientists could spend years putting that document back together.

As I've gotten older I've gotten better at discriminating between high priority tasks like paying off my student loans, and low priority tasks like filling out questionnaires. Sometimes, though, stress has caused the line between those things to blur. When I received that survey yesterday I felt like I had a responsibility to follow through. I didn't.

What the deaths of Steves Jobs and Appleton tell us

How we worship our heroes tells us everything we need to know about ourselves.

Heroes ought to reflect what we value most in ourselves. In the deep past we favored momentously strong heroes like Hercules and Samson. Later heroes embodied virtues like honesty and loyalty, particularly in the face of great danger.

If the obituaries of Steves Jobs and Appleton (of Apple and Micron, respectively) tell us anything, it's that today's heroes are market forces––men who seemed to commune with the invisible hand of the marketplace. 

Just look: Jobs "was seen as inseparable from his company's success." Appleton was "a self-made man, very competitive, incredible integrity" who "chose to keep his family and company in Boise––and did it without fanfare."

Jobs was the patron saint of innovation and relevance, and Appleton was a paragon of community-mindedness. What they have in common is that they're both popularly understood through the lens of their business accomplishments. 

This makes a lot of sense––at a glance. Why shouldn't the media zero in on their most significant contributions, especially if the deceased is a person of widespread interest? Steve Jobs brought us the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. Appleton was one of Boise's most powerful and energetic business leaders. 

That said, I for one wouldn't want to be remembered the way Stephen W. will remember Appleton:

"RIP Steve Appleton. One of the true great Idaho business leaders. Not only helped Boise State, but the rest of the state through job creation and philanthropy."

The Steves are everything political conservatives can dream of: Here are heroes who embody success through intelligence, innovation, and business acumen––and are nice guys who give their money away.

It isn't enough that the obituary is about a person of interest, providing a sketch biography and list of significant accomplishments. When it comes to great entrepreneurs, a man is measured on how good he made it look to be a business man.

People being dicks

You can't open a newspaper anymore without being bombarded by people being dicks. You name the vice; it's rampant. From cowardice (see the Komen Foundation) to blatant backpedaling in the face of public outcry (see the Komen Foundation), to lumping the impoverished with the ultra rich into a single group that doesn't merit our scrutiny/attention, douchebaggery is on the rise.

I chalk this up to the media's treatment of the news event. Rick Perry holding a press conference or town hall meeting isn't a front page article, but Rick Perry saying something insensitive or stupid at a press conference––that's gold.

Below are three of the best and most recent instances of people being bad, chosen not because they're the douchiest bits of douchebaggery, but because they speak volumes about the perpetrator's lack of moral and personal fiber.

Mitt Romney doesn't care about the poor.


This clip has been online for a few days now, and has been the source of unending misunderstanding. It's pretty evident that what he was trying to say is that we need to direct our collective attention to the plight of the embattled middle class; he just said it in a way that marginalized the poor and lumped them with the rich into a group that we should just ignore.

Mitt Romney is in this race because RoboPrez cares

It's the kind of gaffe sensible people would otherwise ignore. Mitt Romney, like all the other presidential hopefuls, is at the center of panoptic media attention. He was bound to slip up sooner or later and say something vaguely ugly.

As Slate.com pointed out, if Romney scores the nomination, the presidential contest will be between two men who are ignorant of huge swaths of contemporary American life. No person aware of poverty would say the safety net is adequate.

But factor in dickitude when you take into account what Romney pays in taxes. Here's a man who has paid the best accountants money can buy to engineer his finances so that he'll be able to pay as little in taxes as humanly possible. What's more, his political platform seems tailored to perpetuate his ability to do this, while non-zillionaire working Americans pay roughly twice that percentage. 

I've heard it said that Romney is generous for giving large sums to Mormon charities in the form of tithing, but is charity the same as paying taxes? It's our privilege to give our money away, but our responsibility to pay into the trust that gives us national and social security, industry regulation, and diplomacy.

Raul Labrador bitches at Eric Holder to predictable Republican applause

On the surface, Raul Labrador stands for all the staunch, austere virtues a social and political conservative should. In the halls of power he projects the kind of steely-eyed pragmatism that comes from keeping your own counsel and a lifetime of experience dealing with other people.

Like most people who project this kind of pragmatism, there's nothing behind it. Raul Labrador is one of Idaho's most prolific buffoons, as he demonstrated yesterday during a hearing about the "Fast and Furious" weapons trafficking scandal.

"Because you have been grossly incompetent in the way that you have prepared before coming to Congress, I think you should resign," Labrador said to Eric Holder.

Holder's response: "Maybe this is the way you do things in Idaho, or wherever you're from."

Eric Holder had already been lambasted over this issue during his confirmation hearing in 2009. Labrador is that idiot at a party who whispers something witty, and if he hears someone chuckle, he repeats himself a little louder so everyone can hear. 

Komen Foundation de-funds Planned Parenthood in a fit of cowardice, then bows to e-Pressure

I wasn't aware that the Komen Foundation even existed until about yesterday, when Facebook shuddered under the weight of liberal indignation over its move to defund Planned Parenthood. 

My first thought was that as a foundation, it's well within its rights to spend its money however it pleases. I still think that. Whatever its stated reasons, Komen Foundation doesn't need to justify itself to the public.

Then, in a bold (or, depending on how you look at it, not-so-bold) reversal, it canceled its plans to discontinue funding Planned Parenthood. 

In a statement released by Planned Parenthood (linked to above), spokesman Cecile Richards claims that "Planned Parenthood has been a trusted partner with the Komen Foundation in early cancer detection and prevention services."

And that's fantastic. If only Komen Foundation could be a trusted partner as well.

Rebuttal: Commercials

Commercials can lead to deafness. Have you ever been watching your favorite show, only to have it abruptly cut to an incredibly loud ad for, say, laundry detergent? My mom goes so far as to preemptively mute the television when she suspects a commercial coming on the same way you or I might stifle a sneeze. (Ironically, neither of my parents ever stifle the sound of their sneezes.)

There's another kind of hearing impairment I associate with commercials, and that's tone-deafness. Take this excerpt from a letter to the editor by Kelly Temple I read in today's Idaho Statesman: 

"The truth is, [Super Bowl commercials are] the same annoying drivel we barely tolerate the remaining 364 days a year."

Now, I tolerate all manner of ridiculousness in the Letters to the Editor section––its denizens wage a perpetual and fruitless war against abortion and socialism and whatever, and there simply isn't enough time or energy in the whole world to convince these people not to be idiots in public––but this kind of misconception will not stand. To even suggest that the most important day in advertising is no better than any other day in advertising reveals nothing short of tone-deafness.

Some of this blog's most popular posts are about advertisements, and I'm pretty passionate about television commercials, so I feel the need to offer a rebuttal to Ms. Temple. 

America has the greatest and most magnificent culture of consumption the world has ever known. From food to energy to cleaning products, we buy more of just about everything more than anyone else. Over time that culture has developed a thicker skin than most to the traditional tricks advertisers use to persuade us to buy their products.

Admittedly, there's a lot of "drivel" out there, and it's axiomatic that a bad commercial will get more airtime than a good one. After all, why pay more to make a good commercial when you can make a bad one and spend the savings on more air time? These are the same advertising geniuses who believe the best way to reach their audience is to turn the volume up on their commercials. 

There are also some fantastic ad campaigns that make us laugh, invent markets for things we never thought we'd need, or even stir our weary senses of patriotism. These campaigns are spearheaded by smart people who know how your mind works and know how to make it hum with excitement. Super Sunday is the day when all the best minds in advertising (and possibly the world) are on display. It's practically Christmas.

The Super Bowl is advertisers' Christmas

I think of Tabasco as analogous to a gateway drug. It opened the door to Cholula sauce and eventually the meth of hot sauces, Sriracha (or as I call it, "Hot Red Cock"). When this commercial aired, though, I thought Tabasco was about the hardest shit there was outside some Texas roadside barbecue pit. We watch as a fat, sweating hoosier douses a downright unappetizing slice of cheese pizza in hot sauce, then noisily chew and swallow. Everything about this commercial is muggy and undignified and disgusting, right up to the point that the mosquito explodes in a ball of flame.

That mosquito reversed the banality of the commercial in an instant. It's a gimmick that turned Tabasco from that hot sauce of choice at Denny's to the hot sauce that makes fireworks out of unsuspecting mosquitoes, and every good ad man knows that the ability to shift public perception of your product is a gift from the gods.

Detroit as the dying warhorse of American productivity

Certainly, some of the most memorable Super Bowl ads are funny, but there are others that pluck on the heartstrings. Detroit is the dying warhorse of American productivity: It has been in decline for years, and since the 2008 economic downturn, it has become the symbol for America's lost prosperity. It's fitting that the city's motto, Speramus Meliora, Resurgent Cineribus, means "We hope for better, it will arise from the ashes," since the city's resurgence will likely be symbolic of a renewed national focus on production, creativity, and export. 

Eminem's Chrysler ad was a sharp and refreshing departure from everything we've come to expect from Super Bowl commercials. It's sleek, but relies on Detroit's grit for emotional impact. Imported cars have become so commonplace, the ad argues, that they've replaced domestic automobiles. It comes as a kind of shock that our own cars are reliable and classy.

When media critics dedicate articles to the best and worst Super Bowl commercials, they're paying homage to people who have been entrusted with hundreds of thousands of dollars by agencies to create the most show-stopping ads money can buy. Their only restraint is time, which means your average 30 second ad slot is jam-packed with as much production value and narratological brilliance as possible.

What's more, many Super Bowl parties I've been to are hosted by people who know nothing about football. They're people who open their homes to friends so they can enjoy the spectacle of one of America's most glitzy annual events and laugh at the funny commercials.

And your reaction is, "Wow, I can't believe you watch this drivel"?