This page ©1999 Chip Brown.
You'll Log
I have no idea why I named this article that. I was just sitting here thinking
hey, that'd be a cool name. Since I own the place and when my wife isn't
home I'm in charge...by cracky I'll name this article
that!
But I've been thinking about Christmas. No, not really worried about it, I don't do that until the week before. The biggest worry I have right now concerning Christmas is that I don't miss the Charlie Brown Special this year. I guess you really don't worry about Christmas too much until you have kids. That's when the problems start.
Now, I understand how kids can get the idea that having the newest toy should make them happy and well adjusted. I just can't figure where parents came up with the same idea. I think there are subliminal messages in those Pokemon cartoons. Parents seem to think if they don't find all 90 pieces of the new popular action set this year their kids will turn out to be serial killers. Maybe Jeffrey Dahmer would have turned out better had he gotten that Billy West action set when he was 12.
But we find out that Bobby's little friend Ed has the dynamic spinning thing a-ma-jig for his Voltare action figure and Bobby doesn't. Now what does that tell us as parents? It tells the normal parent that they don't love their Bobby as much as Ed's parents love him. Surely Bobby will be destined to hand out french fries in life while the spinning thing-a-ma-jig owning Ed is sure to attain greatness. They must buy little Bobby this gadget before it's too late. Personally, it tells me I'm not letting Bobby be friends with that Ed kid anymore.
Now, where do kids get these ideas that they must have the latest gadget on the market? Most parents have no idea so they fire up their $3000 personal computer and surf the Internet looking for the reason. If they can't find it there they walk around town talking on their cell phone asking people. Should that not pervade them a clue to the reason they'll jump into their $80,000 SUV and go ask someone down at the club. As a last resort they'll spend their life savings on season's tickets to the UT games trying, I'm sure, to sit in the cold rain on a hard seat and search out the meaning of all this.
So if you want to know, go watch TV. Stuck in between those ads that tell you to spend more on that new four wheel drive SUV than you did on your home, are ads that tell your kid what toy he wants next. Certainly kids are so impressionable they believe everything they see on TV. They'll be the coolest kid on the block if they get that new toy the TV told them to. We all know the TV doesn't lie. Look how much more popular you are now that you bought that SUV it suggested! You're probably Texaco's favorite customer.
Back in the days of cavemen this first started. One caveman used a rock to kill an animal for food. All the other cavemen saw what he did and wanted this rock device too. Pretty soon there was a traveling rock salesman and then another. Each telling you why you aren't much of a caveman if you don't own the latest newest rock on the market. None of these geniuses realised they lived in a pile of free rocks!
Nope, they had to shell out whatever currency there was back then, because Ronco came out with a new and improved rock guaranteed to cut tin cans yet still smash tomatos.
Then, one day this caveman saw that Ugg down the street had the new rock and he couldn't afford one! What could he do? He took last year's model rock and clubbed Ugg with it and took his new stone. That's how violence was invented!
It's not so much different now. Just go to the mall, get yourself a pretzel and just sit and watch people. It's not long before some lady clubs another over the last Poke-something or other. Maybe the toys have changed since prehistoric times but our thinking hasn't. Nor how we deal with the issues. Now we do it with $300 glow in the dark tennis shoes instead of stones.
It's the advertisers fault. If anyone lies more than politicians and weathermen it's the guy that writes TV ads. Take banks for example. It's too bad that the guy that writes their ads doesn't make the loans. He makes it look easier to get money from a bank than prospecting for gold. Yet when you go to get a loan, this guy is nowhere to be found. He has been replaced with a surly old guy who understands only one word. No!
But the whole idea of advertising is to render the public's brains inoperative until they can get our money. I saw this ad on TV the other day for a product called Ear Aid. It was supposed to improve your hearing 50%. I swear to you, it was two funnels that strap to your head. While true that they may help you hear things, the most you are likely to hear is "look at that freak with funnels in his ears."
So this Christmas when you go out shopping look for the following advertising words. And remember, we at Maynardville.Com were the first to tell you what they really mean:
NEW - Different color from previous design.
ALL NEW - Parts are not interchangeable with previous design.
EXCLUSIVE - Imported product.
UNMATCHED - Almost as good as the competition.
FOOLPROOF OPERATION - No provision for adjustments.
ADVANCED DESIGN - The advertising agency doesn't understand it.
IT'S HERE AT LAST - Rush job. Nobody knew it was coming.
FIELD TESTED - Manufacturer lacks test equipment.
HIGH ACCURACY - Unit on which all parts fit.
FUTURISTIC - No other reason why it looks the way it does.
REDESIGNED - Previous flaws fixed - we hope.
DIRECT SALES ONLY - Factory had a big argument with distributor.
YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT - We finally got one to work.
BREAKTHROUGH - We finally figured out a use for it.
MAINTENANCE FREE - Impossible to fix.
MEETS ALL STANDARDS - Ours, not yours.
HIGH RELIABILITY - We made it work long enough to ship it.
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