...from a comment on the Newsbusters site, on a story about the Snuggie (those weird backwards-bathrobe things) and other "as seen on tv" products:
"those ads are just like Al Gore; exaggerating the severity of a problem until Something Must Be Done" (my paraphrase but that's close to it.)
That's exactly it. EXACTLY it. That's why I hate so many of those ads - like the Snuggie - life is so hard because blankets fall off your arms! Or those glass things you fill with water and stick in your house plants - watering them is SUCH a giant chore!
So many of those commercials I just LAUGH at because I think, "If having a blanket slide off my arms when I am lying on the couch reading a book is the biggest problem I have in my life, I am blessed beyond my wildest dreams"
Seriously - does anyone watch those ads and suddenly feel like their life is terribly, terribly hard because they have to remember to water their spider plant once a week?
Or are we really becoming a nation of wusses, where every little thing is SO HARD that we are easily enticed into sending off money - or, in the political version, giving up a freedom - for some promise that looks dubious, at best?
As for me? I use sweaters. In fact, I'm so hardcore I MAKE my own sweaters.
There's just something that seems kind of sadly symbolic about people buying into being convinced that a problem they never recognized before is now a crisis, and they must go and throw some money to a huckster for a solution.
(And I bet the Snuggies are made out of really crappy material.)
Friday, January 30, 2009
Observation of the week
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2 comments:
What is it they say: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is?
Those snuggie people must not have pets--that's the real problem when you have a blanket on you; it's an automatic pet magnet and you're pinned to the sofa.
What I want to know is how do you walk in those things? I mean, think about it: If they're basically a big closed-up blanket with arms, how do you walk?
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