When did the writers of advertising copy decide that catch phrases devised to sound like vulgar slang are appealing devices to sell services or merchandise? If you are so devoid of wit and civility that you find Verizon’s new campaign hilarious, Sponge Bob is over your head. Oscar Wilde this isn’t. What it is is one more gratuitous coarsening feature of the public square and common discourse. Now we are teaching children that it’s cool to speak rudely, as long as you pretend that you aren’t intending to. Look! The grown-ups are doing it!
It’s an insult. It’s an insult to the target audience that is supposed to clap like seals at a play on words that would have rejected by the most desperate night club comedian 20 years ago. It’s an insult to the craft of marketing, to which this is what farting on key is to singing. Most of all, it’s an insult to society, the culture, and the United States of America. No wonder Muslims think our way of life is disgusting. It is.
I couldn’t bring myself to post on K-Mart’s abysmal “ship my pants” ad in 2013; I thought it was an aberration. OK, I hoped it was an aberration. Now comes Verizon to sell its FIOS by having actors complain that their internet is half-fast. Half-fast, get it? GET IT???
I’m not offended by the phrase—heck, I scream things ten times as ugly at my computer every day. No, I’m offended that there not only is no respect for others in public discourse, the entire idea that there should be is considered old-fashioned. This began with badly raised kids spouting obscenities in movie theaters, then began metastasizing as TV comedians, Vice-Presidents, Oscar-winning actresses, rock stars and others lacked the inhibitions to keep them from whispering, speaking or shouting obscenities into open mics, and now has gone mainstream. Fortune 500 companies run by Harvard Business School grads believe that promoting their business with coded vulgarity is cute and responsible. Well, it isn’t. It just makes the world we live in a little uglier, and it’s more than ugly enough.
Ethics Alarms 
Truly, a half-assed commercial. Vulgar? Yes. I only wish it was the worst I’ve seen, though. When you see actual children spouting sexual obscenities in a TV ad, that’s when you know that standards have cratered in the medium.
And then there are the NFL players merrily defecating in the end-zone in front of a sold out stadium and the television largest audience ever to watch a championship with premeditation. Just having fun. The rush to tolerate and cater to the least common denominator continues apace. Next, Julliard will have a director of diversity and a Rap and Hip-Hop faculty. No worries, it’s all good. Every culture is good as long as it’s diverse. We need to embrace it, Jack. Don’t get left behind. You don’t want to be on the wrong side of history, do you? Lighten up. Chill.
With any more “diversity”, we’ll end up like the Middle East!
you reacted to the Verizon ad. The advertising agent wins.
Sadly, that’s why this will get worse and worse.
“I couldn’t bring myself to post on K-Mart’s abysmal “ship my pants” ad in 2013” – though technically, you did mention it.
https://ethicsalarms.com/2013/04/16/you-ask-i-answer-the-k-mart-ad/
Thank you…I can stop berating myself now.
One thing is that I heard this very edgy joke told on broadcast TV by the gonzo entertainer John Denver 30 years ago.* The other thing is that Wild Man Denver apparently figured his audience would get it after one telling.
I’ve always wondered if broadcasters give any consideration at all to the possibility that stupid commercials will cause people to change the channel – the remote control is a pretty standard piece of equipment nowadays. I can think off the top of my head of three commercials (one on radio) that I routinely avoid. Tedious repetition is the common factor.
*I think to Kermit the Frog.
I agree.
And the same point that I was trying to make about the planned tweet-an-insult day.
Oh, my insult to that guy will be worthy of Oscar Levant or Winston Churchill.
And the Grey Poupon ad that has people talking about all the things they like to “poupon”.
Lovely.
I remember using the “half-fast” joke when I was in Junior High School, 55 years ago. Wasn’t funny then, isn’t funny now, but is JUVENILE.
Are we at the point yet, of talking about furniture that is “Sofa-King affordable/comfortable/stylish?”
What about those Booking.com commercials that are all about “This is exactly what you booking needed!”
I HATE those.
There a few like that, and I couldn’t think of one. Thanks.Also unclever and gross, all the “shit happens” approximations.