"Our Car Distracts From the Joyless Farce That Is Life"

Overthinking It has some rather excellent (over)thoughts on advertising in the wake of last weekend's Annual Television Commercial Grand Prix (and Football Match). First, there's an article on a particular genre of ads, the commercials for which have a message of "bad things happen to you when you use our product". But the real brilliance is in this piece, analyzing the Dodge Charger commercial:

The motto at the end was “Man’s… last… stand!” but it might as well have been “Compensate… for… something!“ This is not, generally speaking, behavior that your audience is going to want to emulate. [...]

Are we to understand, then, that the add is targeting mid-life crisis sufferers who are so far gone that they just don’t care anymore? Or is it targeting aging hipsters who think that the crisis-of-masculinity is going to be the next trucker hat, making this the first ironic muscle car?

[...]

To sum up—the premise of the commercial, to begin with, seems like it would only appeal to someone whose basic attitude is “Look, honey, I feel emasculated, and want a big car to make myself feel better.” The specific aesthetics that they bring to bear on it makes the message even darker: “Look, honey, deep down underneath, I scarcely qualify as anything you’d recognize as human. The only thing that makes me feel alive is driving this car, and quite honestly, this persona that you think you know? The one that you were planning to introduce to your parents soon? Is a lie, and I only created it because it’s the most efficient way to trick society into letting me drive this car on a regular basis.”

Quirks

Since archangelwells asked:

A. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
B. Tag seven people to do the same.
C. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag "whoever wants to do it."

1. I often pat people on the head. (I resist this one much of the time, as some people find it annoying.)
2. I enjoy being tickled. (Though that's not to say I'd want to be tickled out of the blue.)
3. I can get really absorbed in music. With regard to me, trance is an accurately named genre.
4. I'm very un-picky. I like unusual flavors. There are very few foods I don't like. (I don't like fast food much anymore, but that's not because I find the taste unpleasant.)
5. I'm really shy about playing music publicly. I almost always use headphones.
6. Artificial light keeps me from sleep far more than daylight. Sound is also more disruptive to me sleeping at night than napping during the day.
7. After burning myself on a hot pan at camp when I was very young, I've been phobic about fire and hot objects. Took me ages before I was comfortable turning on the burner on a gas stove.

I'll tag fantwurm, _skye_, i_am_lane, polygonia, nurrynur, chiaki777, and larksdream.