I find it only my duty to inform the American General Public that I have not been feeling well lately. Because then perhaps the American General Public will spring into action and, as it has been known to do during times of great crisis, bring me heaping mounds of chicken soup.
What has caused my sickness, you ask? Or, if you have actual events on your social agenda, do not ask? Well, reports suggest that there has been a flu bug ("Harold") going around campus, infecting students by the hundreds, and so I fully blame my illness on the advertising industry.
You see, I became sick once I started watching the baseball playoffs, which happen to appear on television, which happens to be the leading cause of annoying television commercials. Recent studies show that the average (or base hits divided by at-bats) American will be thoroughly annoyed by TV commercials so long as he or she is within 500 feet of a television set, even if the television set is off.
It is a well-known fact that the advertising industry exists solely to make consumers like you and me (and Wilma Johnston, 51, of Delaware) believe that we absolutely, positively, without a doubt want lots of things, even if we absolutely, positively, without a doubt do not want them. For instance, even though I happen to be sick, I do not buy the notion that in order to feel better, I should take plenty of liquids. You hear this all over the place. It is clearly a ploy propagated by the evil United Liquids Faction. I'll be sticking exclusively to solids and gases, as usual, thanks.
If you need another example as to the pitfalls of mass marketing, take cellular phones. Take a lot of them, in fact, and be sure to give some to me, because they are quite expensive. And nobody really needs them. Sort of like kidneys (except for that last part).
I happen to hail from New York, the Useless Consumer Technology Capital of the Eastern Seaboard. At any given moment, every single human within city limits can be found talking on a cellular phone, and this includes newborn infants. Many people are so blindly addicted to paying out the Wazoo (location: Iowa) for these services, that they will often times use their cellular phones to make calls -- this is an actual fact -- even if there is a regular phone right there in the same room. Even if the regular phone is IN THE WAY of the cellular phone. Even if the people have to pick up the regular phone, dial the number of the person they are supposed to be calling, and ask that person if he knows where the cellular phone is.
First person: "Do you know where my cell phone is?"
Second person: "I don't see it anywhere."
First person: "Have you looked under the regular phone?"
Second person: "It's not there, even."
First person: "(Curse word)."
Please note that these people have the same interpersonal skills, roughly speaking, as woven throw rugs. But the thing is, they BELIEVE that they are tremendous communicators, because they are always communicating. The media makes it seem like anyone who is anyone simply MUST have one of these phones. They barely leave consumers a choice in the matter. Granted, if consumers were left a choice, over half of them would choose "pudding," regardless of the situation. But still.
Last summer, ostensibly as the result of existing in the same country as power lines, I decided to go ahead and purchase one of these cellular phones for myself. (It narrowly beat out pudding.) At first glance I noticed that the phone was expensive, but upon looking more closely, I noticed that I could no longer afford food. Plus, there were additional "roaming" charges tacked on whenever I made calls from outside of my specifically designated calling area, which was limited to "somewhere in the Fourth Dimension." So I had to take the phone back to the electronics store, but not before making numerous important calls to friends and family, offering up valuable information such as "Hello! I am calling you from a cellular phone!" and "Hey there, guess the number of wires attached to this puppy!" (Friends and family would usually guess "two or three;" they obviously thought I was referring to a real puppy.)
And do you know what? I was so brainwashed by advertisers into thinking that I needed this small and sleek piece of technological ware (literal translation: "crap") that ultimately I was considering keeping it in case of emergency. Particularly, in case the emergency happened to be "launch money into outer space."
I know I speak for everyone when I say that if advertising professionals took all of the commercials scheduled to appear on TV in the next year, and placed them in a raft over the deepest part of the ocean, then everything would probably sink to the bottom. Not that I am suggesting anything.
If you have a better idea, then feel free to call me. From a phone with cords. And be sure to bring some chicken soup, minus the liquid. And By God, for your own safety, do not roam.
