Have you noticed that ad headlines have entered an alternate universe of weird tricks and miraculous outcomes?
This used to be the stuff of 3 am infomercials. But now, since Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and torrents (which I still don’t really understand; sorry kids) have made 3 am the same as any other hour of the day for watching the content of your choice, those food dehydrators and ShamWows have really got to be suffering.
Fortunately for them, there are still places we can all occasionally be found at 3 am – Facebook and the seventeen thousand content aggregation sites where we catch up on conscious uncoupling, U.S. Airways’ social gaffe and other important news stories. This is where those “one weird trick” ads always seem to show up.
At this point you might be wondering what happens if you actually click on one of the ads. I can’t tell you, though, because I’m too scared to try. I’m afraid my computer will go to the blue screen of death, or start blasting “Blurred Lines” really loudly with no way to turn it down. Actually, braver souls than I have already investigated and found just what you’d expect – pamphlets with tips and tricks, and an endless range of pills to make you better in every way at a self-renewing $79.99/year.
But my point here, and I do have a point, is that this is what cheeseball consumer advertising has come to. Once upon a time, you would pretty much have to be reading the back of a comic book in order to see a tacky ad like this. Now, it’s served up to you over and over as you travel around the web trying to read today’s news in peace.
But maybe I’m just being negative. Go ahead and click if you dare; you might find out a flatter stomach is only 30 bananas away. Can I dip mine in Nutella?
