Best Buy just became the latest TV advertiser to conclude that it’s astonishingly clever and hilarious to evoke “fuck” in a commercial, one that I just heard at 7:54 PM. The spot extolling Christmas shopping at Best Buy (it isn’t even Halloween yet) featured a cheery announcer pointing out that when you shop there, you won’t be “elfin’ around.” Get it? It sounds like “effin,” a cover-word that means “fucking,” and is meant to be heard as “fucking.” But, see, it’s SO clever, see, because it’s NOT “effin’,” but “ELFin’,” and this is a Christmas ad! Wow! Christmas AND Fake Fuck in the same word! There must have been high fives all around when the writers came up with this one.
An ethical management would have told them to grow up, and fired the lot of them. This is 2015, however, a banner one in the coarsening of America, so Best Buy decided it was cool to join Verizon, Booking.com, CNN, and President Obama —you know, our national role model?— in following the lead of K-Mart’s disgusting “ship my pants” ad in 2013.
I have lots of posts on this topic to choose from…let’s see…I think I’ll use my conclusion of the Verizon post, about the ad in which the communications giant thought it was brilliant having actors complain that their internet is half-fast.I wrote,
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.
Gee, I wonder where I’ll shop this Christmas?
Not Best Buy.
If there isn’t some backlash at this trend, it will only get worse.
Ethics Alarms 
Aldous Huxley tried to warn us.
I wish I could afford a decent fiddle. That, or a nice pair of cutlasses and a flagpole.
Just to be clear, I’m not mocking this post. Just saying that I think our circling the drain is picking up steam, and this is yet more evidence of that. I can be pretty vulgar, but seeing this on a “broadcast” commercial is disturbing. I’m sure that this was within the FCC’s current standards, but I see a day coming when having language standards at all will be construed as having puritanical or religious origins, and they’ll be repurposed towards some sort of political function. That, or we’re just getting really stupid.
Careful, Joe. You’ll be accused of advocating banning speech you don’t agree with.
That’s not how it works. Disapproving of something the pot-smoking liberal crowd finds amusing is hate speech itself (which is banned). You can’t ban speech with banned speech.
I just feel sorry for all the residents of Effingham, IL.
You are just being unfair to President Obama…
Wasn’t Lincoln’s ENTIRE second inaugural address just a long string of expletives directed at the South?
“Gee, I wonder where I’ll shop this Christmas?
Not Best Buy.”
No, you’ll do what we ALL do! You’ll look at Best Buy and then buy from Amazon or Ebay.
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Ethical?
http://honestslogans.com/image/15043066415
Now that might actually qualify as elfin’ around.
Yeah, and everyone my brother’s age or younger seems to think its soo clever. Thing is the word really has little meaning to them as they use it as a noun, adjective, verb, and interjection in the same sentence. If they thought even a half moment they could use words that have some meaning outside a wish to offend. I miss when you could hear/read an eloquent insult that both made the speaker’s point and showed their cleverness. Using this crude word constantly shows a lack of imagination and vocabulary. We should laud those who make a good zinger, where is today’s Don Rickles?
Something like “I refuse to become involved in a battle of wits with a man who is only half-armed.” versus “Fucking half-wit”?
I stand guilty as charged.
Frankly, I don’t give a funk.
My family and I will not be doing any shopping at Best Buy for the rest of this year because of the ad. At the least the wording is controversial – at the most it borders on breaking FCC rules. How many minors will see this add and emulate it at school only to be disciplined. Another unscrupulous person will take this phrase and put it on T-shirts – ala Forrest Gump.
I am encouraging all of my friends to boycott Best Buy until after the New Year. Advertising can be humorous without skirting the line or crossing the line into vulgarity.
GOOD!
Thanks!! We are asking our friends to also boycott Best Buy! When greed crosses the line it is best to take action.