The 'Loser' commercial comes in many varieties mind you. It can range from being out of shape to needing a boost in the bedroom to not being culturally satisfied and needing to learn a new language.
For the physical angle you are mostly looking at commercials dealing with diet pills, exercise benches, or a special DVD program. The more humorous ones are the special clothing designed to make you 'look' less fat, or have boobs or something. Get big, strong and lean if you're a guy. Get a toned flat stomach if you're a girl. Be the appropriate height.
Now in these commercials typically you'll see like a 7-8 scale good looking person. They're never stunningly beautiful, but just better looking then probably the average person. They look like what we might think the average consumer would look like if they tried such and such product.
Now for me, I find these commercials ridiculous. Their is no magic program, no product that will take the place of the fundamentals of having a healthy body. It's a simple combination of will and discipline. With those in place, a simple routine of just about anything for exercise and a balanced healthy diet, one can achieve a fit toned body.
No one needs to really have a fit and toned body to be a good person mind you. But that's what they're selling you. That after they become this fit person, everything in their life goes from crummy and miserable to 'holy &*%* look how ripped am I am!?! I'm the hottest bitch in this place. Oh I'm totally killing it at work now, thanks *blah blah blah*'.
But not all losers care about is their body's some of them really take pride in their intelligence. Perhaps the person staying up late needs to foster their creative side more and pursue a career in art. Or learn a new language.
By the way, I don't know a single person who has had this impulse. Most people know by their Senior year of high school whether they like a foreign language or not. None of my friends that I know are venting to me that they really regret not knowing how to say 'which way to the bus station?' in German when they live in North Carolina.
The next category is barely in the 'loser' bracket, but I think it has to make it. The Gadget commercial. This has two takes on it. One being YOU are the creator of a gadget, you just don't know it yet. This one famously starts with a caveman carving a wheel, essentially suggesting that essentially 'If a caveman can do it....' They flash to some family man that made either the best water slide ever, or a Nerf flying helicopter that has a video camera. ( Which doesn't exist, but would be sweet!).
If you can't invent gadgets, well at least you might as well buy gadgets right? Like a new 5 way chopper for salads? Or the safest chainsaw ever (Even grandma can hack down hard limbs!)? And of course, you got to, got to, got to have a slap chop.
With slap chop guy we also get into a small venture of Late Night sales guy. Now this person usually does double duty as daytime sales guy but his ads rarely go into the spectrum of prime time, (Morning, evening to 11 pm.). This guy usually speaks loudly and aggressively, and for some reason always seems to be wearing a shade of blue.
These are dubbed over by, which I find far funnier than the real thing but delivers my point.
Mighty Putty
Kaboom!
Oxi Clean
Big credit to Jaboody dubs for creating those gems and one Rodney Bohner for introducing me to the items. Good stuff.
I don't know what if any affects their might be for watching so many of these commercials at a time might be, though I would guess the effects to be mostly depressing. Having been a member of the late night community for some time now having worked at a bar for the past 5 or so years and having been a late night college student, I've observed this trend for sometime without really reflecting on it.
Have the commercials affected me? To some degree I would have to say yes. At first my thought is to say that the commercials made me depressed, but that's not true. At first it made me just want whatever it was they were selling, be it a get rich quick scheme, a body that looked like it was carved from granite, a blanket that is molded like a robe, which is cool, but looks like something you can ONLY wear to an Easter egg hunt. I wanted all of them.
But I knew that desire would be soon fleeting. Replaced with the knowledge of who I was and being OK with that person. Perhaps the commercials might have done some motivating when it comes to being healthy and attempting to pursue whatever goal I might be pursuing.
Next time you're up late, and your channel surfing, make a note of some of the commercials you see and how many promise a better version of you or a happier you. The results are staggering, but in the end you should never ever take them seriously.
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