Watching TV

I'm watching TV. Not just watching shows, but real, live network TV, complete with advertisements. This is college football. There's a female presenting human dressed in some faux fur, made up to a sheen, shine, and sparkle, saying something about the various merits of the two teams. She is your dream girl, genuinely interested in the game and also genuinely interesting to the testosterone driven sex. She's just an illusion, disappearing in a poof, another position to be filled for fulfillment of male fantasy. A line of dudely looking humans dressed as cowboys run out holding purple flags. Maybe these are your dream queens. This team is called the "horned frogs". Cheerleaders hold a sign that says all we want for Christmas is a sixth win.

Geico dominates the ad space, with a knack for presenting entertaining snippets that keep you guessing—what might they be trying to sell me? Oh yes, car insurance. Is it not obvious that a company which spends the most money advertising can't possibly have the best service? These characters look like average folks, with collars sticking out of their sweaters, with holiday visiting grandparents snoring in a reclining chair. This scene might be ocurring in your home at this very moment.

A Nissan dealership set against a superimposed urban skyline suggests that yuppies like yourself are still buying cars. See, look, here they are marveling at the features as rather reasonably sized SUVs spin on turntables with computer animated holographic overlays pointing out the rather reasonable gas mileage, optional features like butt heaters. These humans are just like you, except that they are currently shopping for automobiles. Actually, they may be just a bit cooler, a bit hipper than you, a bit better put together, you want to be like them.

In a rather reasonable looking living room, some guy named Tim has a meltdown when he watches his friend speak commands into a Comcast remote control in order brings up sports game player stats on the television. His DirecTV doesn't do this. Tim looks kind of like you, but he's clearly nothing special. You are listening to Tim's internal dialog. He is laying his feelings of inferiority bare. Tim slips and says aloud something to the effect of "but I want to be the football master!" He's in a room full of friends gathered around the glowing sports monitor. They all look at him with some amount of sympathy, nod, and say, OK. Later, in a scene not shown on screen, Tim gets Comcast service complete with voice activated remote control. His life feels complete, at least for a moment.

Now we're in a large sort of AT&T Santa's workshop where a dude in an iffy Christmas sweater talks to a kinda nerdy looking lady with a big collar sticking out of her sweater. They're also in a sort of futuristic computer aided holographic reality, standing around a round table marveling at the latest gadget. She says that she knows what she's asking Santa for this year. He says, you really still write letters to Santa? She says no, please, I send emails. He asks can I get his email address. She says no I'm not comfortable sharing. After watching this ad twice, I'm still not sure exactly what they're selling, but I know I can get it from AT&T, and that's what really matters.

Here's some trap music and closeups of unlikely well stacked Wendy's burgers. They wrap and unwrap themselves with stop motion animation. They put themselves into your mouth with stop motion animation. These burgers are so cool you can invite them to your party.

Santa is some middle aged loser who's wife gets tangled up and takes down the Christmas tree with a crash. He's trying to sell you Duracells, for your batteries not included Christmas presents. The message seems to be that dead batteries in your children's remote control toys cause tripping hazards, therefore Duracell. Or maybe it's just a ploy to capture attention then slip in a little message, an image of the product, the logo, a little brand awareness. With Thanksgiving now two days behind us, Christmas is fair game. The marketing machine runs like clockwork. Cranberry sauce replaces the Halloween candy on the supermarket end caps. Santa replaces the abstract turkey talking to you, telling you to buy stuff.

A guy in a suit says what if someone lit a candle and it burned a towel in the bathroom over there? What is this place where insurance agents hang out with odd groups of characters who see no need to explain what they're doing there? He explains: it couldn't be me cause I've never used a bathroom; I just meditate and it goes away. Insurance, cars, pizza, burgers, smartphones, and cable. This is the real America, as great as it ever was. Your civic duty: buy this shit before the economy takes another too big to fail nose dive. Your civic duty: consume.