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Thursday, July 9, 2009

Okay, whatever, Levi's. Whatever you say.



Here's a fun commercial. 30 seconds of unadulterated retarded nonsense. Not even remotely aimed at any reasonable target demographic. What, super hot girls who wear bikinis, living in Suburbia? Where are these girls? But more importantly, the girls aren't wearing the jeans. The jeans are being worn by the dreamy 20-something ice cream man (believable) who is selling them ice cream? But also playing guitar?

People have probably ranted about this plenty in the past, but I think there will have been enough bitching when advertising companies knock it the F off: the ads! They're completely irrelevant to the product! Here's an ad for jeans. What do you think of when you think jeans? How about comfort? People seem to be interested in their jeans being relatively comfortable. So naturally, Levi's makes a commercial depicting someone wearing jeans in the least comfortable situation possible, the middle of the goddamn summer. The only more uncomfortable time to wear jeans is when it's snowing, and you're skiing, and you fall down. Or maybe if you were wearing jeans in the summer, and you tried to ski down a hill and you fell over and rolled head over heels all the way down the hill, skinning your knee and ripping your expensive jeans. Nice work, Levi's.

Or what about fashion? You might have super comfortable jeans, but then you realize you're a guy and you're wearing mom jeans, leading you to finally understand why everyone is always laughing all the time. They're laughing at you, jackass.

So fashion. If i'm not mistaken, Levi's is insisting here that their jeans are SO FASHIONABLE that girls, hot girls, will come from miles around to hear your shitty version of Yankee Doodle that you're, for no apparent reason, broadcasting out of your ice cream truck. Maybe a few token dudes will show up, too. Because you're sexy, man. You've got those jeans, and the Popsicles, and the girls will lick the popsicles in an overly seductive and horny-stripper kind of way, because Levi's = fashion.

And what is that at the end? The jeans this ad is hawking are called 501 JEANS WITH ANTI-FIT. Without even doing research on what this even means, I find myself rather automatically posing this question: who in their right goddamn mind would buy a pair of jeans with an added feature called "anti-fit?" Who sees this ad, and thinks "I should go down to Macy's and buy these jeans, because they're going to anti-fit me, or in other words, they're going to be the wrong size, always."

The only redeeming quality of this commercial is that I have a guitar, and I could find those ill-fitting jeans, and I could probably put some money together or hijack an ice cream truck from the dreamy 20-something ice cream man in my neighborhood (still totally believable), and then I'd have girls totally all over me. Or, OR! I could wear the jeans I have already, and not look like a douchebag, and retain my dignity! Oh, what will I choose?!

Screw you, Levi's.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Dove is Way More Pious Than Thou



Alright, I'll get things started here with some solid, solid mysoginism, because that's truely what brings us together in this world, right? Right? Ugh.

The commercial starts out with a fairly :( looking lady who's come into a studio to be transformed from her apparently hideous self into a decidedly less hideous-looking billboard model. One neato little timelapse later and Dumpy Mc Drab Queen is a stunning model. Because don't you get it, stupid? Girls (and sure, some guys maybe) drive past that billboard and think OMG I wish I could look like that girl, but I never will, because my mom and dad were both fat, acne-ridden Neanderthals, ugh I'm gonna go eat some Ben&Jerry's and watch Gossip Girls. Look, Dove, we all get it. You're trying to make people feel better about themselves. But let's look a little deeper.

This commercial is hawking a decidedly vague-sounding campaign, the Dove Self-Esteem Fund. Woof. To quote comedian David Cross, that's like "waging a war on jealousy." It's so vague that you literally cannot win, though you also can literally not lose. Smart move, Dove. I looked into what this campaign does, and it turns out they have workshops and stories online and pictures and shit that convince girls that they're actually pretty and not Dumpy Mc Drab Queens, like some asshole bloggers might say they are.

Then I looked a little deeper than that. Dove's parent company, Unilever, is s a huge European conglomerate that owns a number of well known brands, from personal care ones like Dove and Lever 2000, to food and drink companies like Hellman's, Lipton, Breyer's, Klondike, and Ben&Jerry's. What was that last one?

So the shallow, beauty-centric ads that plaster the mainstream media today make girls depressed and they all go eat Ben&Jerry's (cha-ching!). But now Dove is trying to convince girls that they are beautiful just they way they are! You don't have to starve yourselves anymore! Go have that bowl of Ben&Jerry's you've been craving! (cha-ching!)

What have we learned from this commercial? From a male's point of view, I'm getting that you don't have to be super stunning to look like those girls in the commercials and magazines and billboards. Feel like your Facebook photo album isn't very flattering? You just take that picture of you and Jessie and Sarah from the Wreck the Deck party at generic fraternity #1, you know, the one where your right eye is kinda closed and you have a stain from where you spilled a Red Headed Slut shot all over yourself while trying to sing along to "Summer of '69", and you send that picture to a guy with Photoshop, and bippity-boppity-bacon! You'll be on the August cover of Redbook.

Send money to Dove. They'll make things all better.