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Today, the TV at the dentist's office was tuned to CNN. And it played the most MANIPULATIVE AD I'VE EVER SEEN.
It shows a small boy, maybe two and a half, in a crowded concourse, with adults zipping past. His mom is there at the start, but then vanishes into the crowd. And then you watch, in silence, for a full sixty seconds, as the boy first looks around, and then slowly starts to cry. It was AGONIZING. I think because you can see that he is fighting it, but is just overwhelmed by the distress. I'm not sure there's even an adult equivalent to that feeling of being lost when you're small. And also, I knew that, though this was only a commercial, children that small don't act. That pain was real for that kid.
At the end of it, it says--this is how sad your child is when you're gone for a minute. Imagine if you were gone for a lifetime. QUIT SMOKING.
So now I am sitting in my dentist's office, crying. And the dentist had just left for a minute--he was about to come back in and check my bite. And I'm thinking, shit, he's going to think I'm in pain or something has gone wrong with my teeth when it's just this STUPID COMMERCIAL.
Can I just say--though I don't approve of smoking and I do agree with their being societal pressure against smoking, I HATE the no smoking ads. They always make me feel AWFUL. It's clearly trying to shock smokers out of denial about the consequences of smoking, but I've never smoked in my life. I feel like they're kind of carpet bombing with these horrible emotions when a lot of people watching don't even smoke. It's like an enormous, country-wide guilt trip. And it's in the middle of the Colbert Report and, apparently, my dentist's office, and I DO NOT WANT.
If you would also like to feel like a tear gas canister has been set off in your vicinity, here is the ad. It says something that when I searched for "lost child anti smoking ad," the first result that came up was "controversial scared boy ad."
It shows a small boy, maybe two and a half, in a crowded concourse, with adults zipping past. His mom is there at the start, but then vanishes into the crowd. And then you watch, in silence, for a full sixty seconds, as the boy first looks around, and then slowly starts to cry. It was AGONIZING. I think because you can see that he is fighting it, but is just overwhelmed by the distress. I'm not sure there's even an adult equivalent to that feeling of being lost when you're small. And also, I knew that, though this was only a commercial, children that small don't act. That pain was real for that kid.
At the end of it, it says--this is how sad your child is when you're gone for a minute. Imagine if you were gone for a lifetime. QUIT SMOKING.
So now I am sitting in my dentist's office, crying. And the dentist had just left for a minute--he was about to come back in and check my bite. And I'm thinking, shit, he's going to think I'm in pain or something has gone wrong with my teeth when it's just this STUPID COMMERCIAL.
Can I just say--though I don't approve of smoking and I do agree with their being societal pressure against smoking, I HATE the no smoking ads. They always make me feel AWFUL. It's clearly trying to shock smokers out of denial about the consequences of smoking, but I've never smoked in my life. I feel like they're kind of carpet bombing with these horrible emotions when a lot of people watching don't even smoke. It's like an enormous, country-wide guilt trip. And it's in the middle of the Colbert Report and, apparently, my dentist's office, and I DO NOT WANT.
If you would also like to feel like a tear gas canister has been set off in your vicinity, here is the ad. It says something that when I searched for "lost child anti smoking ad," the first result that came up was "controversial scared boy ad."
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Jeeeeesus.