Commercial Trends That Need To Stop [NSFW]

We've all seen them, commercials that just piss us off for one reason or another. I and my infinitely observant (made a few flippant mental notes in the last few minutes) have found a few trends in commercials that just need to be stopped before they strike again. These aspects of commercials make me not want to buy a product as it does makes me want to find the marketing team behind these mind-bleedingly awful campaigns and light them all on fire. Let's begin...

1. If We Say Things Really Fast or Non Chalantly, They Couldn't Be Important
As seen advertising: Pharmaceuticals, Cars, Too-Good-To-Be-True Services

Okay, to kick things off I'd like to briefly mention how disclaimers are addressed in commercials. Disclaimers have always been in commercials because companies need to let potential customers know about certain aspects of their products, or perhaps exceptions to sales, and maybe that the harmless medication they're selling could have potential side effects... like fucking death.

But at least this happens first, right?

Yep. I'm used to car commercials rushing through the part of their supposedly awesome sales prices to explain to me that they're actually telling me what I could get the car for if I was one of their employees. I've seen all of them do this, and I'm okay with it. Or at the end of a furniture commercial when they say that "EVERYTHING IS ON SALE!!!! Sale-excludes-everything-you-may-actually-want-to-purchase," I'm good with this, I've accepted that the price I pay for these items is literally made up on the spot.

I'm also perfectly fine with things like InventHelp:

The guy kindly tells you that, well, your invention probably sucks so don't expect a lot. They also don't give you any information other than "This one guy was kind of successful, and we helped. So uh, call us and stuff. Maybe we can hang out sometime..."

But the pharmaceutical commercials are now the worst offenders. And I'm only going to be brief about this because every goddamn comedian in the last couple of years has touched this more than little kids. Yup, that's where that joke ends - I'm implying that all comedians are now molesting children. Deal with it. Like the example above - since Viagra screws with your blood pressure it CAN kill you. Seems they got in trouble when they forgot to mention it while their gay cowboys sat around singing Viva Viagra.

The latest drug to have serious problems associated with it that happened to slip the minds of the people advertising it is Accutane. In fact, one commercial just kind of says, "Hey, Accutane - makes you a cool teen. Ask your doctor about it!"

Glad they mention side effects like peeling skin, depression, nosebleeds, or perhaps something like suicide might be worth mentioning. But the greatest has to be the many, many lawsuits against the manufacturer for people who have now been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, Chron's disease, and inflammatory bowel disease. Because diarrhea and inflamed bowels are definitely cool, as long as you have clear skin right?

She may have explosive diarrhea and severe abdominal pain, she
may be suicidal, but her skin has never looked better.

2. Children Are Dicks

As seen advertising: Toyota Highlander, Glad Trash Bags

These commercials irritate me to no end. Who thought, "People love children, but what if instead of having them be cute and precocious we made them be absolutely intolerable asshats?" Let's start with the Glad commercial:

I really hope these children got beat into next week. From the "There's the meatloaf, yuck!" to the arrogance behind their somehow superior knowledge about trash bags, these pretentious twat waffles need to stop putting on their goddamn Glad branded fake newscast and learn some appreciation and manners. Honestly, I hope they know of the strength of the Force-Flex bags due to not being able to tear one that got tied around Skylar's (Skylar? Really? Oh fucking shit, there's a whole other topic...) head and caused some sort of palsy. Hey shit-eater, why don't you shut up and help you're mother you unnapreciative little prick?

But Skylar and his brother are no match for the absolute revulsion one has to face when watching commercials for the Toyota Highlander and... well, just fucking watch if you don't know what I'm talking about:

Just fuck this kid in the face with a bullet. No seriously, shoot him, pull out the slug, reload the bullet, and shoot him again. "My parent's still cart me around in a car that says, 'Hi, we're the geek family!'" Yeah you know why you little shit? Because it looks like your parents are working people, middle class at best. You have a goddamn leather bomber jacket and were playing video games, but no - you ungrateful bucket of pretentiousness, you won't be happy until you're little ass is carted about in a car loaded with bluetooth audio (probably in designer goddamn jeans, no doubt.) To make it worse, later commercials show him looking down on other kids because of their parents choice in shitty cars (even though technically the Highlander isn't his families car, is it Mrs. J?)

Speaking of Mrs. J, you can tell she's had it with her son's asshole of a friend by the look she gives. At least Mrs. J has the good sense to shut him up using the rear seat entertainment system. Now if only she'd just drive her Highlander out to the desert and light the whole thing ablaze while the kid thanks God for not letting him die in a shitty 'geek family' car - and God looks away. Then maybe his parents can afford to buy nice things for themselves instead of feeding into this shitbag sized narcissist's every whim.

3. Women Will Fall For Anything If You Buy Our Shit!
As seen advertising: Twix, Every male hygiene product ever

I get it, sex sells, and every guy is looking for a way to attract women. Hell, if there was a product that could guarantee me even more hot, wild, promiscuous sex than I currently have on a daily basis I'd buy stock in the company and 100 cases of the shit. However, it seems companies like to take this a step or two further and basically say, "Our product will turn any woman you meet into a complete and total idiot/whore." Some are more innocent than others, for instance:

In this commercial we have a guy doing what most guys do - especially with the 'activist' type - and feigning interest in what the girl has to say in order to trick her into gobbling up his candy bar. When he decides to take the initiative (read: has heard her talk enough, would rather see her head bob) and asks if she wants to go back to his place, she catches on to his plan and acts all, "I am not that kind of woman." Thinking quickly Freddy Fagballs whips out his Twix and makes up some shit about her not really caring about her cause, because he OBVIOUSLY meant he just wanted to blog with her. Now a more cunning viewer knows he didn't want to blog so much as 'blog her senseless,' but this fact escapes her because of the magic female-mind-erasing magic of Twix!

A later commercial shows them arrive at his shitty apartment and when it's a sty, he procures yet another Twix to fool her into thinking he was robbed. This works to get our hero Freddy Fagballs the Third (I added that to give him some credibility) some pity sex, which probably lasted for 2 minutes and ended with him crying while she awkwardly waited for him to fall asleep before escaping and showering with steel wool.

So there you go - Twix, the date rape drug of Mars, Incorporated. (Note: Mars, Inc probably does not condone rape, even if it is facilitated by Twix.)

The other big offender in this group is Axe and Old Spice products. Most male hygiene products are bad, but at least companies like Gillette focus on how close of a shave you can get. Even Shick may have half naked chicks in their commercials, but they follow it up with someone getting hit in the face with a hockey stick or something.

I'm okay with this. Actually... lose the dude, then I'm okay with it.

But the Axe and Old Spice commercials... well they're an entirely different story.

Now, since - if you watched the links in the proper order - the Old Spice ad is fresh in your mind, I'll start there. These commercials are not too bad, but still are worthy of my ire, and yours. First, as much as I don't like these commercials, I can't bring myself to give much of a fuck about Isiah Mustafa - except perhaps for the assumption that we all want to smell like fast-talking-black-guy who deludes women. Seriously, these commercials just act like if women get their men to lather up in Mustafa's jerkings they will be able to produce tickets out of their ass and turn them into diamonds by the power of who the fuck knows. The commercials don't sell a scent, they don't sell me anything. If a chick bases her opinion of what I can give her based on the soap I use, then I'll give her <CENSORED... CENSORED... JESUS CHRIST I STILL HAVE TO CENSOR THIS... WHOA, IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE? CAN YOU REALLY FU- CENSORED.>

The Axe commercials are the biggest offenders here. It would seem every single Axe commercial is about the utter control and dominance over the fairer sex that Axe will bestow upon men. But have you seen any of the guys that use this shit seriously? There is no bigger group of cock gobblers than the assholes that cover every inch of themselves in a toxic film of douchebaggery. There's also the problem that the same assholes apparently have no respect for anyone else's olfactory senses and use the shit like it's bug spray and they're in middle of the goddamn Congo. You're not going to catch malaria at the club, Chucklenuts, and that shit won't protect you from herpes.

The "beach" commercial linked above shows a guy washing and all the women on the beach helpless against the power of his choice of soap. They begin mimicking his movements and undoing their bikini tops, until he steps out of the shower where he loses his power, unable to control his harem to drop their tops. I guess the commercial tries to make a joke out of guys liking boobs, but if you really need that pointed out... well I have a body spray to sell you actually.

The second commercial basically says angels are whores. So yeah, there's that.

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So, dear readers, if there are any of you left, what things in commercials are pissing you off lately?