But that’s the point of those commercials, kids aren’t supposed to die like that.
Many years ago I saw a commercial about winter safety for pets. A camera moves around at eye level to a dog, and a puddle in a driveway is lapped up. It’s spilled anti freeze. The camera moves slower and slower and the picture gets fuzzy, and then cuts off. Keep stuff like that cleaned up so it won’t kill things!
Maybe so, but the underlying message of “this kid died because you didn’t give us enough money” is pretty awful. No, they don’t come right out and say that, but you know it’s what they want you to think.
I also prefer the Shriners commercials over the St Jude ones, especially since St Jude seems to think they’re the only children’s hospital that matters and (as I’ve said repeatedly) they’ve already got a big fat pile of money.
So I thought I was pretty immune to crappy ads,not having broadcast TV or listening to commercial radio. But recently the podcasts I listen to have upped their advertising. Its super irritating (no hate for the podcasters themselves, they aren’t exactly rolling in money, and most offer paid subscriptions to get rid of the ads which I sign up for where possible). The Disappearing Spoon is particularly irritating to me ATM, its a really great science history podcast but its about 25% or more advert (and doesn’t offer an ad free version)
As I am in the DC metro the adverts are often really specific political ads, aimed at beltway insiders. Like "I’m a hardworking American mother and small business owner, and I’m telling congress I oppose HR-1234 to over regulate widget production on the gulf coast. Paid for by the widget manufacturers of America "
Annoying commercials on DC-area radio are the primary reason I listen to streaming audio from elsewhere. Right now, I have Ireland’s Christmas FM on; once in a great while they’ll play that super-glurgy “Christmas Shoes” and I’ll switch to one of their sisterstations.
Yeah I’ve never had time for US radio either on the east or west coast. I’ve always listened to British radio online, mainly BBC 6 Music.
Its a gripe of mine, as when you hear people coming from the UK to the US in the 60s (like Keith Richards in his autobiography) they are amazed by the awesome US radio stations compared to the dull radio offerings in the UK, and all the different styles of music you’d hear in different radio stations as you drove across the US. Nowadays on road trips across the US you’ll hear exactly the same four classic rock songs (sandwiched between the same 30 minutes of ads) as you go from one Clear-channel owned radio stations to another
I get these on social media a lot, cos of the DC metro IP address. Again, always super specific, not “yay! military industrial complex!” Instead it’s “introducing the killer death ray v1.34.9(b), 34% more megadeaths per kilowatt than the v1.34.9(a)”. Presumably only relevant (in terms of actually able to influence a decision about whether or not to fund said killer death ray) to an absolutely miniscule demographic, but the contracts are worth so much it’s worth spamming loads of people on the off chance,