Holiday ads
Dec. 7th, 2011 01:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidAs usual, they're unavoidable, and therefore annoying, mostly because it's Really Not My Holiday, and partly because for my friends who do celebrate, I hope it's about more important ideas than the rampant consumerism shown in ads (of course, ads are mostly about buying stuff, bringing out the worst in my reactions to the season*).
The ones that have bothered me most this year all have $Store offering such amazing deals that they show up Santa when he's delivering gifts. Which keeps tossing me into a mental loop: they're in some alt-universe where Santa-with-beard-and-red-suit is real, out delivering presents. But if that were the only change to the universe, there'd be a bunch of people still out of work, or cutting back on their spending, so why wouldn't they be happy to take advantage of the free-stuff-from-Santa situation, rather than attempt to shame Santa with their own bounty? Yeah, I know, as advertising, it evokes what it's supposed to, so logic doesn't much enter into it. But it still irks me, each time. Others have jingles that annoy me because of the assumption of observance (hey, Target or whichever store: lots of people do Christmas exactly like I do, which is nothing at all).
The other thing that's surprised me this year is that there are a few that don't bother me at all, most notably the ones by Bing, about choosing one's observances (so far I've seen reference to the Flouting of the Wigs and the Punching of the Gingerbread House, both of which amuse me).
On the whole, though, I'll be glad when December 26 arrives.
* Except for those wicked annoying Salvation Army bell ringers which annoy me even more; the sound pounds at me, even if I didn't have a problem with their politics (homophobic, among other things).
The ones that have bothered me most this year all have $Store offering such amazing deals that they show up Santa when he's delivering gifts. Which keeps tossing me into a mental loop: they're in some alt-universe where Santa-with-beard-and-red-suit is real, out delivering presents. But if that were the only change to the universe, there'd be a bunch of people still out of work, or cutting back on their spending, so why wouldn't they be happy to take advantage of the free-stuff-from-Santa situation, rather than attempt to shame Santa with their own bounty? Yeah, I know, as advertising, it evokes what it's supposed to, so logic doesn't much enter into it. But it still irks me, each time. Others have jingles that annoy me because of the assumption of observance (hey, Target or whichever store: lots of people do Christmas exactly like I do, which is nothing at all).
The other thing that's surprised me this year is that there are a few that don't bother me at all, most notably the ones by Bing, about choosing one's observances (so far I've seen reference to the Flouting of the Wigs and the Punching of the Gingerbread House, both of which amuse me).
On the whole, though, I'll be glad when December 26 arrives.
* Except for those wicked annoying Salvation Army bell ringers which annoy me even more; the sound pounds at me, even if I didn't have a problem with their politics (homophobic, among other things).