CAPITALISM GONE TO POT
Advertising Taint What It Used To Be
America’s troubles south of the border
What’s with Madison Avenue and their scatological tendencies?
I was just singing a pop-punk version of “You Are My Sunshine” from a drug commercial. Subconsciously, but out loud. Yes, I do wish I could ignore TV commercials. It’s an ADD thing.
As part of not tuning them out, I’ve noticed American ads have a growing “down there” focus. Like, who decided every break needs a plug for boner pills?
Some argue that in our clusterfuck of a healthcare system, the pharmaceutical industry should focus on “more important medical advances.” I disagree. Mental health matters, and knowing I can buy a bottle of Stiffy-In-A-Jiffy is vital to my retirement planning.
Lately, there’s been a front-to-back shift from limp dicks to an unsanitary avalanche of women who can’t move their bowels. I’m old enough to remember when ladies didn’t poop at all, so it feels weird to have nationwide ad campaigns about how they can’t.
You’ve come a long way, baby!
I wonder how those damn bears with the toilet paper obsession feel about all this. It must cut into sales. Do they really “enjoy the go” that much? Do they wipe their backsides in the woods?
I certainly don’t think real bears are into onanistic TP fondling. If you haven’t seen the ads, they’re creepy af.
But never fear, ladies. Your problems are over. Forget prescription drugs, the culture of yogurt, or stirring a pound of whatever the hell psyllium fiber is into your orange juice. Try my greasy food and beer diet instead! It’ll get that train moving, and trust me, the bears will effing love it. Five stars, highly recommended.
Up the same alley, as it were, is a presumably hallucinogen-inspired animated box. With the energy of one cubic cheerleader, it exhorts you to “go” in a cup and mail the poop away for a DNA cancer test.
I wonder if it works, but even more about whether the nation’s delivery drivers are OK schlepping our shit.
Do they even care? Comedian Mitch Hedberg joked, “I love my FedEx guy, ’cause he’s a drug dealer and he don’t even know it.” How long can you work for a delivery company before you stop giving a damn what’s in the boxes?
The woman to whom I am related by marriage is a gardener, and we recently got a box of earthworm “castings” fertilizer in the mail. I thought that was weird as hell, but even if they dumped the euphemism and just stamped it “WORM SHIT” I doubt the carrier would give it a second look
The hands-down worst thing I’ve heard is a mumbled warning on drug ads about “a life-threatening infection of the perineum.” If that sounds scary, the truth is way worse — “necrotizing fasciitis of the perineum, also referred to as Fournier’s gangrene.”
WTF, nature? Did we really need a potentially fatal taint-eating bacteria?
I mean, the cancer-DNA-in-the-stool box is a reminder you can never tell what your ass might be up to back there. And anybody who knows dicks knows they can get you dead in all kinds of ways. But I imagined the region in between as a peaceful place. A demilitarized zone between the funhouse and the outhouse where nothing horrific would happen.
I can definitively say dying of taint rot was not on my radar.
But ultimately, I’m concerned what all of this says about us as a people. The essence of America is you are what you buy, and it can’t be good when our #1 concern is #2. Let’s go back to more ads for boner pills instead. You know, something uplifting.
John Werth is a Medium Top Writer in Humor and Satire. He’s also a 12x Top Writer on another platform, but in Canada so you wouldn’t know her. In rare instances, he refers to himself in the third person.
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